We’ll Miss the Vulture
In his poem “Vultures,” the Nigerian writer Chinua Achebe makes the scavenger bird a metaphor for the evil of a concentration camp.
Yesterday they picked
the eyes of a swollen
corpse in a water-logged
trench and ate the
things in its bowel.
Vultures are almost never described affectionately in literature. Instead, they serve as grotesque symbols of the hollowness of death, of exploitation, of benefits gained only by the misfortune of others. In short, vultures give us the ick. And that feeling of general disgust sometimes affects how people think about vulture research and conservation.
But no matter how we collectively feel about vultures, researchers are sure we’re going to miss them when they’re gone. Despite their gross reputation, vultures serve as the janitors of the bush.
Gorongosa, a haven for vultures, has a smorgasbord of options for the hungry scavenger.
People often think that vultures transmit disease since they feed on carrion, but the opposite is true. If a cow or an antelope should die in a forest or on a savanna, vultures swoop in, pick clean the bones, and then eat the bones, too, all in a couple of
