A factor that devastates African vulture populations is when poachers lace carcasses (e.g. rhinos killed for their horns) with poison, because vultures circling a kill reveal the presence of the poachers to wardens. A single big poisoned carcass can kill dozens of vultures at a time, of multiple species.
They circle and kettle in other circumstances as well, but no, they definitely do circle iver carcasses (and what may soon become so). It's a familiar site if you live around them.
Do you remember where you heard it's a myth? I'd be curious to see how that argument was made.
That's something they seem to do, for sure. It's just not the only thing.
They're not very vocal and are very social, so circling over carcasses might be a way to signal to others that they've found something.
They also form kettles as a big communal thing, too, for neither of those purposes. I've seen as many as 50 or 60 circling together for well over an hour, with no food nearby and no clearly no interest in going anywhere else.
(This is all turkey vultures in the US. These African vultures might have different behaviors, but I wouldn't be surprised if they are mostly comparable in terms of variety and sophistication)
I live in a place where Vultures are protected, so there's tons of them, and I have seen them circling in both cases, clearly hovering a carcass, but also randomly circling in numbers when no food is around...
And yeah, on close read, you'll see that they're all trying to communicate that you can't assume that the vultures are circling a carcass whenever you see them circling because they have other behaviors that involve circling as well. But it's an easy detail to miss in some of them for sure!
I feel that’s not quite right. The writing appears to indicate that circling a carcass is the small minority. They’re finding the carcasses by smell of decay.
I’ve read elsewhere vultures are actually good signals of gas leaks for this reason.
They don’t have much of a reason to circle a carcass they intend to eat unless perhaps it’s a lagging indicator and they’re leaving the carcass. They don’t circle dying things because they don’t have the means to detect dying things.
I’m not convinced circling vultures is a good sign that there’s a carcass below them.
Myth or not, the poachers believe it and murder the vultures as a result.
I’ve worked with vultures at a raptor conservancy. They are social, curious and intelligent birds. I have very fond memories of an Egyptian vulture named Boe who would unfailingly undoe my shoelaces when I entered her aviary. I love these birds
As someone who lived near Egyptian Vultures and Eurasian Black Vultures (Aegypius monachus), I can assure you they do. But that's not the only reason for them to do so.
If you're only going to listen to one, listen to the Radiolab episode. The Radiolab episode is crisp and well reported, the 99% Invisible episode is muddled and rambling by comparison.
If it's consumption of NSAID's that are killing the vultures, are the towers themselves not a risk? Are the dosages/drugs given to humans not a problem? Or is there some sort of preparation that would remove the NSAID's?
I tried to research the Zoroastrian procedure, but it got gory pretty fast.
Diclofenac has been banned in India for veterinary use since 2006. Another NSAID that is not deadly to vultures is recommended for such use. Not sure why Guardian ran this story now as this is old news. The real crisis with plunging vulture population goes far beyond Zoroastrian burial rites. See https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_vulture_crisis
That Wikipedia article is what made made curious, as it says "drugs like diclofenac..." From that small bit, it seems like the many NSAID's given to humans such as ibuprofen or asprin could be issues. Even diclofenac seems to have some human use.
I suspect stronger drugs such as codeine etc are used for palliative care of humans in their last stages. Not sure of their effect on vultures. Parsi numbers have never been high and gradually decreasing (now about 70,000 in India), also they mainly live in relatively few places, most in Mumbai and nearby. The vulture population dropped from 40 million to a few hundred so the primary cause must be from their non-human diet.
Low fertility rates (like in most well to do communities), interfaith marriages (if you marry a non-parsi and your kids are not considered parsi), aging population, migration out of India.
I'm in South East, USA, vice the Indian subcontinent. Did something happen here within the last year? (Maybe the same thing?) I haven't seen vultures (Turkey vultures) in maybe 3/4 of a year. They are usually ubiquitous and highly visible due to large wingspan, staying airborne for long periods etc, using thermals from roads/concrete etc that make them common in human-populated areas.
We have a lot of turkey vultures here in California.
A few years ago, we found a few fresh dead (poisoned) rats in our barn.
The turkey vulture population immediately dropped to zero at our house, and the rodent population skyrocketed for the next year.
Please use traps (electrocution or old-fashioned wood and metal spring work best. The electrocution ones are more pet-friendly), and not poison to deal with your vermin.
On a related note, we also have started to get Peregrine Falcons and Bald Eagles again.
Hopefully those populations will continue to recover too.
Poisoned rodents often wander around confused and screaming before they die, and if they do that in a field, they can take out a bird of prey instead of just the vultures.
Seriously, just use the traps. They are way more humane. Also, you won’t have to fish dead animals out of your vents and walls.
RatX, MouseX, and RatRid baits by EcoClear use a combination of gluten and salt to dehydrate the rodent, rather than poisoning it with toxins. Supposedly, they work well against rats and mice while being safe for larger animals, including birds of prey, to consume. People may wish to consider using these baits as well for rodent control.
The presence of the cat alone will deter rats from nesting nearby. The cat doesn't have to kill the rat just has to make it uncomfortable enough to leave. I work in fire protection in NYC (in the area referenced by the website and their experiment even) and see it all the time
This link speaks to a different point with regard to effectiveness, not apparent enjoyment. (And to be fair to the barn cats, they did pretty well keeping not only rats and mice down, but also snakes and scorpions)
They don’t hunt rats because the rats are large enough to threaten the cat. They probably would win 95% of those fights cleanly but it’s risky enough to not be worthwhile. Enjoyment is certainly not a differentiating thing.
These are urban rats specifically which are larger and may not apply to country rats
I went birding this morning near Ithaca, NY. Five turkey vultures, a bald eagle, and a kestrel (which caught and ate a mouse while we were watching) were among the species seen (and so many kinds of warblers. Really, why are there so many kinds of warblers?) I often see turkey vultures near our house (once a swooping flock of a dozen of them riding the wind coming up from the lake). Black vultures are starting to appear in this area also, most notably at the Cornell U. compost piles.
Old World Vultures are not closely related to New World Vultures (which are closer to storks). The mechanism which kills vultures in India and Africa does not present the same issue in vultures native to North America.
I am in the South East too, but I see lots of vultures, but one weird? thing I noticed in the past 4 years is that I see them a lot more often in suburban areas/on sidewalks eating roadkill than I had seen them in the past (usually seeing them circling freeways or rural areas)
IIRC the issue is that new common drugs for humans contain toxins that are deadly to vultures in high doses. One issue with just creating a vulture sanctuary around towers of silence is that it’s nearly impossible to tell if a person has had any of those drugs and if so how much. Plus in that culture cremation/other forms of disposing of bodies are essentially sacrilege because the idea is that having the body touch the earth, fire, or water would be a bad thing which is why they do sky burials in the first place so it’s not like they can just refuse burials.
Here's a link to the general region you describe ordered by most recent sightings. You can zoom in on your specific location and look deeper or draw a new boundary. Hope this helps!
It's a well established fact that animal populations are cyclictic, booming then starving, then booming again.
Predator finds prey aplenty, and so is fruitful and multiplies. Then prey becomes so numerous, it eats prey until there are few left. Predator then has a population crash, and the prey rebound without predation.
Over and over this happens.
Is that what is happening here? Perhaps, as carrion eaters are susceptible too, when this happens to other populations. After all, during this cycle prey and predator both crash... leaving less carrion. And then of course carrion eaters can overpopulate too..
So I wonder, is this just another clickbait headline?
No it's not a click bait headline. Birds that eat carcasses have been in steep decline in many places because of very specific human generated pollutants in the dead animals (in India's case a pain reliever, in California it was lead, etc).
It’s not meant to help the cattle, it’s meant to preserve profits by treating the cattle for a disease they only have because they’re kept in unsanitary and overcrowded conditions.
The loss of the towers of silence is a turducken of human incompetence.
that is probably true in the absence of humans, but modern humans ruin all these cycles when they become part of them, often kill apex predators just because they're bored or their activities inadvertently kill them (poisoning everything in site because you don't like mice/rats)
There’s a global epidemic of grievous inflammatory disease in cattle caused by the paratuberculosis bacterium.
The challenge can be solved entirely by vaccines, it’s just not prioritized. You can simply “cull” a sick cow and sell the diseased meat in the grocery store.
The article doesn’t say what the inflammatory diseases in the cows are in India, but I wonder if it’s the same.
Edit: Yes, researchers have identified widespread Paratuberculosis infections in India. “Our research on screening of over 26,000 domestic livestock for MAP infection using 4 different diagnostic tests (microscopy, culture, ELISA and PCR), during last 31 years has shown that the average bio-load of MAP in the livestock population of India is very high (cattle 43%, buffaloes 36%, goats 23% and sheep 41%).” [1]
Even in Iran, the place for zoroastrianism, the towers of silence I've seen are completely unused for decades. I've visited ie one in Yazd just outside the city some 8 years ago when international relationships were at highest point (if I knew I would go there ten times, absolutely amazing country and people, completely unspoiled by mass tourism).
Zoroastrianism is fascinating and probably first major monotheistic religion and later ie judaism took a heavy inspiration from it. So much for everybody yelling how holiest their truth is and how chosen they specifically are, a lot of folks and mankind overall would benefit massively if they traveled more and more remote. I know I did.
They have concrete building not far where they put their dead instead, forgot the exact procedure unfortunately but clearly its still ok within their religion. If in holiest city of whole religion which houses 'eternal flame' they can manage this, maybe other places should take a note too?
If you think that Zoroastrianism there is heavily punished there by authorities, you are severely mistaken. Officially their number is roughly the same as in India, but in reality its much much more and they face no repressions that I could anyhow see or gather from talking to locals. But its not hard to understand why official numbers would not represent reality, unlike say in India which is cca democracy and this group is quite powerful there.
Or do you have more of personal experiences from Iran that contradict mine?
I've also been to beautifully restored old christian church in the heart of the big city (forgot which one, maybe Isfahan), no issues I just went in, there were masses happening there regularly. No hassle anywhere.
I think it’s also one of those doesn’t-seek-converts plus you-leave-if-you-marry-outside religions.
Those two things plus lots of secrecy around actual beliefs and practices (that one’s less of a problem with Zoroastrianism iirc) seemed to always be factors in a book I once read about vanishing near-East religions. Basically mimetic-evolutionary action, if the religion has the wrong properties it’ll tend to decline.
Take with a grain of salt, but if Robert Sepehr's videos have any truth to them then the history and traditions which interweave from that time and place are rich and far reaching.
OUCH link 3 went private! It is titled "Sex The Secret Gate to Eden Gnostic Teachings" by Thelema Press and should be found elsewhere (if I notice it seemingly fully disappear, I can make it re-appear so seekers may find it and imbibe).
> So much for everybody yelling how holiest their truth is and how chosen they specifically are
This is a non-sequitur and travel definitely will not solve the issue. People are very well aware of the many other religions even now currently being practiced and are still convinced theirs is correct.
I assure you a lot of Christians don’t even have a basic understanding of the Mediterranean and Levantine political situation at the time of the gospels (which kind of features heavily in them) let alone anything about contemporary local events in Messianic Judaism and anti-Roman sentiment. Other religions, currently-active or ancient (or both)? Nah. Zero or near-zero knowledge for most. That’s nerd shit.
I am not claiming it will automatically click with every single simpleton who has been spoon fed one single truth since birth, thats extremely hard place to ever get from.
But seeing culture, people, history, and religions too puts a massive perspective change. I could see that ie my wife traveling across India backpacking had her eyes opened quite brutally compared to her strict catholic upbringing, and it was definitely this cultural/religious shock.
Seeing other religions as equal to yours - how many folks do you know that actually have that? Seeing refugees not as bothersome scum coming to rape and steal and take social payments but same people as you, with same type of dreams, fears etc... again this ain't something you will ever get to from watching news, and that's how most people get all their relevant info, thats the folks likes of trump feed from, from their fears and hate for things they don't actually know, only heard about.
Being treated the nicest from poorest people of the world (dalits in India in my case), complete stranger yet they shared the very little they had with me, and helped me tremendously, repeatedly.
There is tons of islamophobia in Europe, especially in eastern part but I can see it literally everywhere. Most folks like that I talked to have absolutely 0 clue, they just pick few worst news about terrorism attacks, some 'alternate' media talking same stuff for 2 decades. Yes going to all-inclusive package tour to say Egypt and staying in absolute tourist bubble for 2 weeks ain't going to change anybody. I wasn't talking about that sort of traveling, but exact opposite of it.
> Seeing other religions as equal to yours - how many folks do you know that actually have that?
I’m not sure what country you’re from, but in my current city there are large successful populations of Muslims, Hindus, Sikhs, Jews, Christians, and Buddhists.
If you grow up not exposed to that, I can see how travel might help for people with an open mind. But let me assure you, a very annoyingly large percentage of the population (something like 20%) thinks everyone not in their religion is a lesser human.
It’s interesting how burial rituals change over time. Now, we’re talking about composting our bodies, which in some sense returns the remaining minerals back to where they came from in the earth.
mos_basik mostly has it aside from bone grinding at some point, human skulls turning over in the market garden can be disconcerting and a nuisance for law enforcement so it's considered polite to remove and|or grind them.
I think the difference is that if you go to a funeral home in the US and say "I'd like one burial, plain, no sugar" you will end up dressed in fancy clothes, filled with formaldehyde and a decent amount of sawdust, lying on soft polyester cushions and frills in a fancy varnished hardwood box with a lacquer finish and nearly airtight seal. This goes into the ground and then (I'm less to believe) largely doesn't change for decades.
Whereas if you go to a human composting place and ask to be composted, you get packed into a tube with enough wood chips and straw to create the right carbon to nitrogen ratio and a few scoops of microbes and fungi and held at an optimum temperature and oxygen content until you turn into soil. Then you get delivered in the back of a pickup truck and hopefully someone uses you to plant a tree or something.
Not to say that burial is always mutually exclusive with returning your nutrients to the earth - just that the default approach to burial these days isn't so good at it.
I'm always a little jealous that there still exists an active, continuously practised Indo-European religion in Iran, even if a minor one. They have something that Europeans and their diaspora have lost.
It's a language family [1] deriving from a hypothetical shared root language and population, with hypothesised religion [2]. Abrahamic religions' origins, like the Semitic languages they're associated with, are not Indo-European.
I feel more sorry that the planet is losing yet another species that took billions of years to evolve rather than the rites of some religion tbh, the agenda of this article is so weird.
"Our culture" really means "the ways in which we've become accustomed to doing things (because reasons), and which we believe everyone else should recognize as an entitlement for us."
Likewise, "our culture is dying" seems like an overly-dramatic catch phrase for, "we don't like it that circumstances are changing and reducing our ability to do things in the manner to which we've become accustomed and are now entitled."
EDIT: As another commenter correctly says, it's not a great idea to drive vultures into extinction. My comment is about people whinging about it in a way that suggests it's all about them.
People in valuing intangible things for not obviously rational reasons that can be easily dismissed if you approach the entire world with an attitude of smug cynicism shock
One thing that really bothers me, is a frozen culture. For example, Native Canadians would have a changed culture by now, 500 years after we showed up.
Before our arrival, there was war between Native nations, cultural change due to trade and new inventions, and so on.
Unless people believe that Natives didn't have new ideas, this is clearly so. And Native history shows change!
To imagine that 500 years later, no music, language, culture, technology would have changed, is a massive disservice to both the intellect and capabilities of those peoples.
Yet we enable things such as unrestrained hunting, and even whale hunting, for cultural reasons.
As if a healthy Native nation wouldn't stop hunting endangered species! Come on!
So yes, static "this is the way it was" is a load of hurtful outcomes.
For all we know, Natives might have invented our tech by now, had we not intervened.
You need a few things to care about wheels. Some sort of idle class with free time, domesticated draft animals, and an industrial base.
Basically, people need to stop moving around and hunting to live, which means crops and domesticated food/work animals. And large cities for a strong industrial base.
There were few places where all that came together. Maybe the Incans? But they also has waterways and slaves.
If you’re going to recognize that natives/first nations/etc. have agency then we have to accept the good and the bad instead of infantilizing them according to some fantasy ideal.
We have hunting quotas, and attempt to mitigate over fishing, and so on. Yes, we aren't perfect, but we try.
My point was, if a contempary Native nation existed, had modern agriculture methods, and was able to subsist without hunting? I suspect they would self regulate as we do.
> "Our culture" really means "the ways in which we've become accustomed to doing things (because reasons), and which we believe everyone else should recognize as an entitlement for us."
This could be the laziest definition of culture that I’ve read so far.
Today's Pearls Before Swine comic is relevant concerning "translation": One of the characters has a "magic translation box" to translate "politicianish" into "the truth." I did something similar in my original comment above.
