Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire 20,000 Turkey Vultures

Who says they have to be dead.

They smell bad enough.

My vet tells me the buzzards can eat anthrax dead animals , Democrats, perhaps vultures have some standards.

Turkey vultures weren't common here in the New Jersey suburbs 30 years ago. They became more common over the years, and then were followed by black vultures. Now I see them every day. I guess the increase on road traffic has given them more road kills to feed on. God knows there are way too many suburban deer, and they are killed daily on the roads.

I was driving on a road next to the Passaic River recently and saw a dead deer on the side of the road between the road and the river. There were at least 12 turkey vultures feasting on that dead deer. It reminded me of a scene from Africa.

In recent years we have had two road kill deer on my street. The first was in my back yard. My neighbor called the cops as it wasn't dead. I offered the cops my Ruger 10/22, but they used a 12 gauge. They dragged the carcass to the curb and covered it with a tarp. A few days later a truck came to pick it up. The truck was a dual real wheel stake body with a power lift gate. It had at least 15 dead deer on it. More recently a fawn was killed in front of my next door neighbor's house. I wonder how many other residents of my town are having the same experience. We have way too many deer in the NJ suburbs.

Bears are seen here as well. My friend who lives about a mile away had a sow bear with cub in his yard. So, the bears are not only moving into the suburbs but are breeding here. Our leftist governor wants to shut down the bear hunt next year. I have seen two road kill bears in recent years.

We have a lot around here. More some years than others. I have never seen them to be predatory; certainly not to the extent that ravens can be. They get on a dead deer or elk pretty quickly but I've seen quite few domestic cattle carcasses which just lay there and were untouched by vultures or ravens or anything else. I've seen them on a dead newborn calf but it seemed likely the calf was dead before they touched it.
I have seen ravens wipe out a hatch of grouse chicks but have not seen vultures even try. I have seen ravens trying to cut out a turkey chick but again, never seen a vulture act in a predatory way at all. GD

We have both here all year long. A farmer friend of mine (now deceased) used to tell anyone that hunted on his farm tto shoot any buzzard they could. He had some buzzard traps that had a wire funnel leading to a wire enclosure. If a cow died he’d drag it in there and before your know it would be full of buzzards.
He lost many calves to them even as they were being born.

Black vultures are horrible around stock, if I had stock I’d shoot every one of them hanging around, with a high zoot air rifle if noise was a problem.

It ain’t like they are endangered, their breeding range extends clear down to Southern Argentina.

They mate for life and actually run in packs of related birds, when one drops down from the sky they all home in on that spot, they can even communicate carrion info at the roost site and follow the bird that knows where the next day.

My sister has 60 sheep on 20 acres in NY State, heritage breeds, sells to the specialty wool and meat market in Dutchess County. This past August when I was up there a group of Black Vultures landed in the brush behind her barn, prob’ly had nested back there.

She has a good heeler/Aussie mix that helps her with the sheep but I’d bet she’s gonna come out one day and find a mutilated lamb, live or dead.

That’s because all you have is TVs, which are fairly benign, Black vultures, not so much.

If you’re too far north for black vultures, likely you don’t have a problem.

Feast or famine for vultures, they’ve not fed captive birds for two weeks at a time with little apparent effect, turns out based on your observation they can gorge big time when they get the opportunity.

Roadkill and warm-period climate. Actually, studies have shown that in rural areas they eat more livestock and poultry farm offal than they do roadkill, maybe there’s more such big operations in NY now than there was.

I stepped outside today. The wind was blowing about 20 mph and there were four vultures in the air. It's amazing how they can hold their own against the wind and navigate without flapping their wings hardly ever.

Rendering plants have increased prices a lot! That may leave a lot of dead animals left for the buzzards?

Thousands show up in Miami every winter. Then suddenly, in the Spring, they are gone.

Plenty around here, along with Blacks. I read that the TVs are better at finding stuff to eat, but the BVs have stronger beaks and are better at getting into the carcasses.

A dead critter lying around here will attract both varieties of vulture, red-tailed hawks, and bald eagles. There’s a definite pecking (no pun intended) order at the buffet. I’ve seen vultures waiting while both the hawks and eagles fed. The eagles I get, but it looks pretty silly for the big-ass vultures, and not just one, to be waiting on a little red-tail to finish its meal.

Some years back, the vultures were a huge problem in the Frederick, MD area. They ate anything made of rubber, like boat covers, AC hoses, etc, and pooped all over everything. Homeowners installed spikes on their roof peaks to prevent them from roosting. I read at least one newspaper story about a farmer getting a permit to shoot the ones killing his ducks. Eventually, I think they moved off, but nearby Leesburg, VA had a smaller problem after that.

Somewhere between 3 and 5 dozen roost in the neighbors trees each night all summer long. I do my best to feed them with dead rock chucks........

On a cold morning they will line up on a chain link fence with their wings half opened up soaking up the sunshine. They are a bird best observed from a distance.

They certainly are furtive, perpetual-motion creatures aren’t they.

There has been an explosion in turkey vultures up here including all the big raptors up to Bald Eagles. I attribute it to the almost exponential increase in livestock confinement’s and the inevitable several deceased corpses’ piled outside.

It’s a veritable buffet for those birds and coyotes. Bald eagles aren’t quite so regal perched atop a hog carcass. 😉

Birdwatcher, so thats why I saw so many this weekend. I popped a couple of hogs in the mornings and they were on them quick.

left some pizza on the counter, came back later and the buzzards had got it.

We call the black headed vultures mexican buzzards and they're not welcome around here. If you harass buzzards on their roost they'll leave after 2 days and not come back for a year sometimes two. SSS