Our Mission
WHAT IS CAFE VULTURE?
CAFE Vulture, or Conservation and Awareness For Every Vulture, is a group that aims towards breaking stigmas and misconceptions regarding vultures. We also push for the conservation of threatened vultures across the world through education, donations, and volunteering.
WHY VULTURES?
Through our experiences watching, photographing, studying, and interacting with them, we believe vultures to often be intelligent, curious, and sometimes even playful creatures. However, we often find that most people tend to have negative connotations in regards to them - vultures are typically thought to be vile, viscous, and dirty birds. The classic picture is that of vultures circling around a dying creature, awaiting its demise, preparing to feast on its carcass. In truth, circling vultures are usually gliding in search of carrion, rather than cursing a dying creature.
Not only do we find vultures to be fascinating birds, but we also understand that they are key members of various ecosystems in the world, and are also incredibly important to the well-being of humans. As a carcass decomposes, potentially dangerous bacteria and pathogens can develop in the body, which when eaten by rats, ticks, fleas, canines, and other opportunistic scavengers, can spread said disease. Since vultures have a primary diet of carrion however, they have specially evolved to have stomach acids that completely neutralize bacteria and pathogens, meaning that when vultures consume carrion, the risk for disease spread ends with them. Areas where vulture populations decline tend to experience increased rates of disease.
OUR GOAL
So our love for vultures is evident - what does that mean for you though? CAFE Vulture would like to bring to attention the fact that 16 out of the 23 vulture species currently face some sort of existential threat. We at CAFE Vulture want to do our part and invite you to be a part of the fight towards ensuring vulture conservation: for the sake of these birds we love, as well as for the health and well-being of humans.
HOW WE ACHIEVE IT
Our mission centers around vulture education, teaching people all about these amazing birds through interesting, well-written articles that come from credible and scientific sources. We have found that there is no center for vulture knowledge on the internet; so we aim to be that missing central unit for all things vulture-related, and from here gain vulture spokespeople that can work towards spreading knowledge and clearing misconceptions regarding vultures.
Once people understand what makes these birds amazing, why they are so important, and exactly how they are threatened, we want to make donations accessible. We do this by serving as a center from which you can find regional, non-profit organizations that you can donate to in order to help vultures of choice. Rather than having to take time to find a specific organization, you simply find the vulture you love, and immediately find a place to give money that goes towards it.
Lastly, a large part of ornithology, or the science and research of birds, revolves around volunteers. Data collection, observations, polling, and care for birds across the world is heavily dependent on a large body of passionate volunteers. We want to make it easy to find your local or nearest volunteer opportunity that may relate to vultures, or their many avian cousins.
Vultures in India, such as the Indian Vulture pictured here, have seen a sharp decrease in numbers. In the 1980’s, the white-backed vulture, the long-billed vulture and the slender-billed vulture had an estimated population of 40 million, which has since decreased to 19,000 in 2017. As a result, anthrax, the plague, and rabies cases spread by feral dogs and rats have seen a sharp increase - so much so that India’s rabies-caused deaths make up half of the world’s rabies-caused deaths.
This Turkey Vulture, housed in Ann Arbor’s (MI, USA) Leslie Science and Nature Center, is a prime example of how volunteer work can aid local vulture and raptor communities. This male suffered from frostbite and lost his talons, but through the aid of local volunteers, has lived as comfortable of a life as possible.