Researchers, including a biologist from Venezuela, have found what’s killing Turkey Vultures (Cathartes aura) in North America — which has implications for South America.
Turkey Vultures can have a six-foot wingspan, eat carrion and the northern species are migratory: birds tagged in Canada have been found thousands of miles away in Venezuela.
Adrian Naveda-Rodriguez, lead scientist at Conservation Science Partners, Inc. explains that the populations he studies breed in North America (March to August) and then spend time Central and Northern South America (October to March) to avoid the cold days of the northern winter.
“Vultures provide a unique ecosystem service by feeding upon dead animals, and this service is highly demanded at different time of the years in different areas of the continent,” he says, adding that these movements are related to food availability, for example, birds from Central North America spend time in the Llanos (savanna-like plains) of Colombia and Venezuela during the dry season when there is a relative abundance of dead animals.
“They return to breeding grounds in North America when the rainy season begins in the Llanos and the abundance of dead animals is reduced,” Naveda-Rodriguez says, “If vultures are killed in North America between March and August, as proposed to mitigate human-vulture conflict, we are going to lose an important ecosystem service in Northern South America.”
Naveda-Rodriguez explains that his most recent project involved the study of the spatial and population dynamics three North American breeding populations of Turkey Vulture.
“I tried to dig in where these live across the year, how much space they use, what determine they select or avoid areas in the landscape, and what is driving their survival,” he says, adding that this continent-wide analysis was supported by Hawk Mountain Sanctuary Association, US Department of Agriculture, Mississippi State University, Wildlife Conservation Society-Ecuador Program.
In a 2023 study of turkey vultures across North America, Naveda-Rodriguez and his co-authors found that the more road density there was, the higher the risk the birds would be killed.
“We found this risk is higher in the non-breeding season (when they are in Central and Northern South America), and in the return migration season (when they are traveling back to North America),” Naveda-Rodriguez says, adding that prior to this study, the factors affecting the survival of Turkey Vultures in the Americas were practically unknown.
“The long-term persistence of turkey vultures and the ecosystem services they provide will depend on how we interact with them in breeding and non-breeding grounds,” he says.
Venezuela’s Vultures
Naveda-Rodriguez grew up in Venezuela, where his interest in wildlife ecology and conservation began before college when he was working as a reptile zookeeper in his hometown.
“I began my scientific career as collection manager of the ornithology collection at Museo de la Estación Biológica de Rancho Grande,” he says, adding that since then he has served as wildlife field technician, wildlife biologist, wildlife officer, consultant, and project leader to government and non-government in Venezuela, Colombia, Ecuador and the US.
“I had the opportunity to be trained as a raptor biologist in the oldest raptor sanctuary of the world, Hawk Mountain Sanctuary,” Naveda-Rodriguez says, “During my time there I learnt and understood the time to conserve a species is while it is still common.”
Naveda-Rodriguez says his current project emerged from a network of collaborators that he joined back in 2005 when he was conducting vultures surveys in Venezuela.
“I would say the greater challenge of this project was securing the funding to study a non-endangered species,” he says, “But there are great opportunities there, one of them is that you would be able to collect greater amount of data among a larger number of individuals which is going to give you the pieces you would need for the entire story (a luxury you cannot have with endangered species).”
Naveda-Rodriguez explains that global challenges shouldn’t be investigated by single region: global challenges need global collaboration.
“I do think that Global South science from Global South scientists is much needed,” he says, “but unfortunately, scientific colonialism is still happening in our region, and we must stop that, we must encourage a sense of belonging among scientist from the Global South.”
Naveda-Rodriguez explains that those who live in a house know the details of what is going on there, so only they can make decisions and guide processes to fix or change something in that house.
“You cannot expect someone else gets in your house to make changes and make a great job answering questions without having deep understanding of the situation,” he says, “That is what has happened in our region, we have scientist from other regions coming to the Global South to conduct research and they are not leaving any knowledge development or transfer, nor using all available information to answer their research questions which can lead to biased or flawed results.”
Birds of a Feather
Another raptor expert working in the region is Colombian conservationist Ana María Morales, who works with the Fundación Aguilas de los Andes (FADA or Eagles of the Andes Foundation).
“We do mostly rehabilitation of birds of prey, but we also work in education and research, all of this to help mitigate the human-raptor conflict and help in the conservation of birds of prey of Colombia,” she says.
In one project, Morales worked with four people, from three different institutions, working towards the conservation of raptors in a reserve called Jardín Botánico del Pacífico, in the Chocó region of Colombia.
“We want to monitor an occupied Ornate hawk-eagle (Spizaetus ornatus) nest as well as to look for other raptor nests and this monitoring is going to allow us to study the diet as well as reproductive behaviors and development of the chick,” she said.
Morales says she also wants to make this conservation project sustainable by involving the community as guides for bird watching or even scientific tourism at the reserve.
