JOHN HARDIN HAS NEVER HAD A problem with Turkey Vultures. The scavengers dispose of carrion around the Indiana farm where he raises about 40 cows and their calves. “They’ve always just cleaned up the dead animals,” he says. “They would never be aggressive.”
Then a different bird descended on his fields. Over the past several decades, in a shift scientists suspect is tied to climate change, Black Vultures have expanded their range from the South into the Midwest, north along the Appalachian Mountains, and up the East Coast into Canada. The population has also boomed,