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Health and Safety

When large amounts of bird droppings are present, there are always health concerns on the part of the public. There have been no actual reported cases of disease transmission from vultures to humans, though the birds have been implicated in the death of some pets in Virginia.

"We've had a couple of cases where people let their dogs run and the dogs ate vulture vomit and died,"said Martin Lowney, biologist with the USDA's Wildlife Services. "The veterinarian, in a necropsy, was able to determine that clostridium from the vulture vomit killed the dogs."

Human safety, as well as health, can also be a concern. With visions of Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds" in mind, the inevitable question arises, "Will vultures attack humans?"

"People are afraid, absolutely," Michael L. Avery (USDA/National Wildlife Research Center) said. "I don't know how realistic it is, but we definitely have people complaining that they're afraid to let their kids out in the yard for fear of an attack by the birds."

"There's a perception on the part of the populace that these birds can attack. They do come into playgrounds and parks and zoos, though I've never heard of any actual contact. We've had people say they were laying on the beach and the birds walked right up to them and looked at them. It's pretty spooky actually."

Thomas Seamans (USDA/NWRC) heartily agreed, "Some people are just plain spooked by having a lot of big birds that eat dead things hanging around." In these types of interactions, it's primarily the black vultures causing concern. Avery feels that because the birds have never had any bad experiences with people, they've never developed a fear of humans and are, therefore, quite bold.

While vultures have not attacked humans directly, they remain a safety concern for other reasons. "Turkey vultures hang out at landfills, which are often in proximity to airports, and so they are a problem for air traffic safety," Avery said. According to the Federal Aviation Administration's Wildlife Strike Database, since 1991, there have been 152 bird-aircraft strikes involving vultures.