Learn about the role of vultures in our environment at World Center for Birds of Prey, Saturday, Sept. 7

BOISE, Idaho – Learn about the vital role that vultures – nature’s efficient recycling and clean-up crew – play in our environment on Saturday, September 7, at The Peregrine Fund’s World Center for Birds of Prey.

International Vulture Awareness Day is celebrated around the world to highlight an important group of scavenging birds that is increasingly threatened with extinction due to poisoning and other human activities.

Special events at the World Center for Birds of Prey will focus on the unique role that vultures play in the environment. Visitors will learn about a variety of vulture species around the world, with coloring sheets for children to take home.

Live bird exhibits include Lucy, a 12-year-old Turkey Vulture, and three California Condors, a critically endangered scavenging species that is raised at the World Center for Birds of Prey and released to the wild near the Grand Canyon.

Details

When: 10 a.m.-5 p.m. Saturday, September 7

Where: World Center for Birds of Prey, 5668 W. Flying Hawk Lane, Boise

Admission: $7 adults, $6 seniors, $5 youth, free to members

Live bird demonstrations: 10:30 a.m., noon, 2 p.m., 3:30 p.m.

Archives of Falconry tours: 11 a.m., 2:30 p.m.

Information: 362-8687

Driving directions: From I-84, take Cole Road exit and continue south on Cole Road for 6 miles to Flying Hawk Lane.

Website: http://peregrinefund.org/vmic

More information:
International Vulture Awareness Day
http://www.vultureday.org/2013/index.php

 

Did you know?

  • Vultures perform a crucial clean-up and recycling role in the environment by consuming dead animals that might otherwise spread disease and contamination. Loss of these scavengers would have far-reaching ecological, economic, cultural and public health effects.
  • In 2003, The Peregrine Fund discovered that diclofenac, a veterinary drug used to treat livestock that later die and are left to scavengers, was responsible for massive vulture die-offs in South Asia. India, Pakistan, Nepal, and Bangladesh banned it in and recent studies suggest that some vulture species threatened with extinction are beginning to stabilize.
  • A study by The Peregrine Fund, National Museums of Kenya, and Princeton University found that vulture populations around the Masai Mara National Reserve have dropped up to 60 percent in three decades due to changing land use and the secondary poisoning of livestock carcasses intended to kill lions and other large predators.
  • California Condors can become sick or die after eating animal carcasses shot with lead-based ammunition. This source of lead exposure is the leading cause of death in condors in Arizona and Utah and the principal obstacle to the species’ recovery.

For more information, contact:

Erin Katzner
Director of Global Engagement
Main Phone:     208-362-3716
Direct Phone:     208-362-8277