My First Vulture

Hello everyone,

Whenever I treat animals for more than one day, I inevitably form a bond with them. The times when I nurture an animal’s health over time and witness the spark come back into their eyes have been the most rewarding experiences in my pre-veterinary adventures thus far. A good example of this is our Old Rhino I spoke about a few weeks ago. Whenever I heard about his improvement, it was like opening a Christmas present. For him to live another day was the sweetest gift I could have been given. Last week, I had a similar experience with a White-Headed Vulture.

White-Headed Vultures are the scarcest vultures in southern Africa, with only an estimated 500 breeding pairs left in the wild. If you recall my discussion of the vulture’s decline in my “Moholoholo” post, you will remember that the locals poach vultures for use in traditional medicine, which has caused population decline. It is believed that the White-Headed vulture in particular, when mixed with other muthi, enables one to predict the future, and is especially effective for horse races. It does not help that the White-Headed Vulture is monogamous for life. Even when a partner dies, the White-Headed Vulture will remain unpaired for the remainder of its life.

A juvenile White-Headed Vulture was brought to the clinic by the Hoedspruit Endangered Species Center, which had found him floundering in the grass on their game reserve unable to fly. The vulture was only half the size of an adult vulture and had brown feathers on his head instead of the adult white. Once we got him on the table, we anesthetized him so that we could properly examine his damaged wing. We observed that his wing was badly broken and the bone had punctured his skin, causing a nasty infection. If the wing had simply been broken, we may have been able to fix it, but due to the bad infection, it was necessary to amputate the wing. However, for the time being, we put a feeding tube down the vulture’s esophagus into his crop, an expanded part of the esophagus in birds that stores food prior to digestion. This would prevent dehydration in case he was too upset to drink from a water bowl. We administered Metacam for pain and Baytril for the infection, and put him in a cage for the night.

I helped monitor the breathing while the vulture was under anesthesia, so I was able to touch his soft feathers! I never, ever imagined that one day, I was going to hold a vulture. They are actually much more beautiful than people give them credit for. His beak was a rosy orange color and his paper-thin skin was a delicate pink. The feathers on the top of his head were so short and dense that it felt like I was stroking carpet! I gently maneuvered my fingers through his large feathers to reach the down. His down was so soft that it felt like there was silk flowing through my fingers. I already loved this vulture, if not for his beauty, for his resilience to make it this far.

I noticed something else while I was holding the vulture—he was covered in lice. I grimaced, but was determined to continue the task at hand. A few minutes later, I found one crawling on my arm. Ew. They could be in my hair. I could cause an infestation in my host family’s house. Cue freak-out. When my host mom picked us up from the clinic, I insisted that we drive to the pharmacy to get anti-lice shampoo, even though she assured me that lice from another species would not stay on me. Just as we pulled up to the closed pharmacy, I found a bug in my hair. Cue another freak-out. Even though my host mom insisted that there would not be any anti-lice shampoo in the Pick-and-Pay (the local supermarket), I ran in anyway. I asked a cashier if they had any anti-lice shampoo, and of course, she said no. Thankfully, a kind woman standing in line said that if I was very worried, I could wash my hair with white vinegar. I thanked her profusely, purchased the vinegar, and immediately took a shower when I got home. I washed my hair for three days with the vinegar and changed my sheets. I am happy to say that I have not seen another bug since. I guess my host mom was right.

For the next few days, we tube-fed the vulture canned A/D, which is very easy to digest. In vet clinics, A/D is often given to critical care patients that refuse to eat anything else or have very sensitive stomachs. To animals, A/D tastes really good. We also repeated the fluids, Metacam, and Baytril in order to increase his strength. He needed gain some of his strength back so that we could amputate his wing. Three days later, the vulture was much stronger. He had responded well to the feeding and medication, and was much perkier than he had been before. He resisted much more when Janelle had to pick him up. The amputation went very well and the vulture reacted well to the anesthesia.

We force fed the vulture for the next couple of days the same as we had before, and then we decided to leave some chunks of raw meat in his cage to see if he could eat for himself. By the next morning, he had not touched the meat. Dr. Rogers deemed him strong enough to graduate from the A/D, so we decided to force-feed the chunks instead. Excitingly enough, Dr. Rogers told me I could catch the vulture if I wanted too! I was so excited. I had never been allowed to restrain a wild animal before by myself. After three weeks of hard work, I think I had finally earned Dr. Roger’s confidence and trust. I put the bird gloves on and opened the cage. To my surprise, catching the vulture was relatively easy. The vulture was more scared than aggressive towards me. In one motion, I grabbed the vulture’s head with one hand and his talons in the other, hugging him close to my body. His wing was only partly tucked under my arm, so I asked Victoria to push the wing a little bit further. I had to fight to keep him restrained—he was much stronger than he had been earlier. I felt so much love as I held this beautiful boy. Even though he had been so weak, he had pushed through his pain and fear and regained his spirit. I especially loved him because he allowed me to catch him, to have this small success—to feel like my skills were improving and it was possible to get into vet school. Above all, he allowed me to feel worthy of the wild animals I was treating every day.

Now it was time to force feed him. While I restrained the vulture on the table, Janelle held a syringe in his beak to prevent him from closing it. Then, Dr. Rogers would put one small piece of meat down his throat at a time. His skin was so thin that we could see the meat travel down his esophagus!

After this last feeding, the people from the Endangered Species Center came to pick him up. They would provide him with a permanent home and perhaps, when he matured, find him a female in a similarly captive situation. Even though the vulture is destined to be in captivity for the rest of his life, I think his life will be a good one. He will be an ambassador for his species, allowing guests at the Center to gain appreciation for the magnificent White-Headed Vulture and value its conservation.

We contact the Center every couple of days to check on the vulture. According to them, the vulture is doing very well! He is eating on his own and seems stronger every day. Tomorrow when he comes into the clinic to have his bandage removed, I will be elated to see my beautiful boy again. This is one of our happy endings.

Sincerely,

Aria