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Cool Critters: Bloomsday’s vulture won’t eat carrion, but real turkey vultures will – and you should thank them

An adult turkey vulture perches on a dead fir snag bordering Tina Wynecoop’s property just north of Spokane. (Courtesy of Tina Wynecoop)
By Linda Weiford For The Spokesman-Review
An adult turkey vulture perches on a dead fir snag bordering Tina Wynecoop’s property just north of Spokane. (Courtesy of Tina Wynecoop)

Turkey vultures have a major PR problem. Many people view them as black-feathered villains with menacing bone-colored beaks that skulk on tree branches and circle the skies waiting for animals and humans to die. But a growing body of research shows they are unaggressive, graceful and gentle. What’s more, they are nature’s ultimate clean-up crew.

And while Tina Wynecoop of Spokane isn’t a scientist, some of her best friends are turkey vultures. Each summer, vultures comfortably perch on a lawn chair in her backyard or the wood handles of an old wheelbarrow laden with flowers.

“They have brought me great joy,” said Wynecoop, who, along with her husband, live on a rural parcel of land surrounded on three sides by a subdivision on the city’s northern edge.

Wynecoop, a member of the Spokane Audubon Society, doesn’t need a calendar to know when March arrives. That’s when she starts seeing the turkey vultures return each year. After migrating thousands of miles from their far southern winter ranges, soaring groups – called kettles – reappear in early spring to their breeding grounds near the Wynecoop’s property.

After observing them closely for nearly 25 seasons, she finds them “beautiful, smart and kind,” while also stressing that they provide an important service to the environment.

“I’d really like to see people not go ‘ick’ when they think of turkey vultures,” Wynecoop added. “They are so misunderstood.”

The turkey vulture (Cathartes aura) is one of three vulture species in the United States and by far the most abundant and widespread, according to the Cornell Lab of Ornithology. They get their name not because they gobble, but due the red folds of bare skin on their heads, similar to wild turkeys.

Bill Robinson and his Bloomsday Doomsday Hill Vulture greets runners May 1, 2022, during Bloomsday. The Vulture has been a fixture at Bloomsday at the top of Doomsday Hill since 1987. Unlike real turkey vultures, there have been no reports of the Bloomsday Vulture eating any carrion. (COLIN MULVANY)
Bill Robinson and his Bloomsday Doomsday Hill Vulture greets runners May 1, 2022, during Bloomsday. The Vulture has been a fixture at Bloomsday at the top of Doomsday Hill since 1987. Unlike real turkey vultures, there have been no reports of the Bloomsday Vulture eating any carrion. (COLIN MULVANY)

Also, contrary to what’s portrayed in popular culture, turkey vultures don’t stalk live humans in deserts or near creepy houses. Instead, they eat already-dead critters. Not only can vultures smell those critters while soaring high overhead, they are also able to locate them beneath dense tree cover and buried under leaves, according to research.

“Turkey vultures have evolved to have the most finely-attuned sense of smell among nearly all birds, which has also allowed them to be the most ubiquitous of all the 23 vulture species in the world,” authors concluded in a 2017 study published in Scientific Reports.

Research also has found that turkey vultures eat lots of roadkill, ranging from deer and raccoons to squirrels and birds. They also consume dead coyotes, snakes, mice and livestock.

For this, we should thank them.

That’s because turkey vultures have a super acidic digestive system that enables them to ingest old meat tainted with anthrax, tuberculosis, botulism and rabies – and not get sick themselves. Also, having a featherless head keeps it free of harmful pathogens and unwanted particles of carrion as it pokes around inside body cavities. Yes, bald is beautiful.

“Without turkey vultures, carcasses would accumulate and diseases would spread from rotting flesh” to humans, wildlife and livestock, Cornell’s website states.

To scan wide distances, turkey vultures rise 10,000 feet or more into the air, their long wings forming a distinctive V-shaped silhouette against the sky. As if filled by helium, the birds use rising columns of warm air to gain altitude. Then they glide long distances, seldom flapping their wings.

What’s more, they are social birds, flying in groups and roosting together at night. They’re quiet, making subtle vocalizations and not tussling over food.

All in all, turkey vultures make great neighbors, said Wynecoop, who suspects they are drawn to the area around her house for the basalt cliff not far from her backyard that plunges into a wooded valley. Dark, secluded and rocky, the cliff provides good nesting sites, she explained. The birds also nest and roost in large trees within the valley, she added.

And whenever a pair or two alights in her backyard, “I love watching them up close,” said Wynecoop, who will sometimes sit on the ground nearby. “They’re calm and don’t seem to mind the attention at all.”