Protected birds are pecking livestock to death. Now Missouri farmers can fight back
As black vultures have crept into Missouri, the birds have created gruesome and deadly problems for farmers, officials say.
Last year, Charlie Besher said black vultures had killed four calves and a cow at his ranch west of Cape Girardeau, the Joplin Globe reported.
The first time, he discovered a dead calf with its eyes pecked and chased off the birds as they began attacking a cow, which later died from infected internal injuries, the newspaper reported.
“It’s going to do nothing but keep getting worse, I’m afraid,” Besher told the Joplin Globe at the time.
Now a program will allow livestock owners to kill black vultures, despite their protected status under the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act.
The Missouri Farm Bureau obtained a statewide depredation permit through a U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service pilot program, which allows it to issue sub-permits to livestock owners “experiencing problems with black vultures.” The sub-permits allow for black vultures attacking livestock to be killed, according to the Missouri Farm Bureau.
”The birds have been basically killing young calves as they are born,” Kelly Smith, senior director of marketing and commodities for the Missouri Farm Bureau, told St. Louis Public Radio.
Applicants will be scored on previous livestock losses, number of livestock in the farming operation, number of black vultures and nests in their proximity and county ranking of livestock in the state. Approved applicants will be allowed to kill up to three birds based on the score.
Though turkey vultures are more common in Missouri, black vultures have expanded their range in the southern part of the state, according to the Missouri Department of Conservation. Both species feed on carrion, including roadkill, while black vultures will hunt opossums, skunks and other small animals, including livestock.
Until the 1900s, they were appreciated as “slaughterhouse cleaners” in the southeastern U.S., according to the Missouri Department of Conservation.
“Then, unfounded fears of them spreading disease caused them to be shot, trapped, and poisoned into the 1970s,” according to the Missouri Department of Conservation.
State wildlife officials say their numbers and range are increasing with more abundant roadkill, climate change and availability of nesting habitat.
“This program balances the need to manage black vultures causing damage along with the desire to maintain sustainable populations across their range,” Tom Cooper, a migratory bird program coordinator for U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, said in a news release.
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