“They’ll peck the eyes out of the baby calves. It doesn’t take very long when you have 20 or 30 of them,” said Bell County rancher Randy Cross. “The calves don’t have time to get up and on their feet.”
Born into a family that has ranched the same land near the confluence of the Leon River and Friar’s Creek for more than 90 years, Cross said he first noticed losing calves to vultures about eight or nine years ago. He lost three this spring.
Cross and other ranchers say typically two or three vultures will harass the mother cow so she can’t protect her offspring. Meanwhile, other vultures go in for the kill.
“These buzzards would just come in droves … and the mama would try to run them off and they would just jump around her and they wouldn’t go away,” Cosper said.
Other ranchers say they have seen similar attacks.
“They come in packs, get mama to run after them,” said Roy Northen, who ranches on land near Hartrick Bluff, just south of Temple. Northen’s been lucky lately, he hasn’t lost any calves for a couple years, but said others need help.
Ranchers and Texas Parks and Wildlife Department officials say the black vulture is often confused with what is called the turkey buzzard (also a vulture) known for its red head and dining on road kill.
Black vultures are smaller than turkey vultures, and entirely black except for gray head and a whitish band on the underside of the wings.
Cecil Cosper, who has lived in Bell County all his life, said together with his father-in-law’s operation near Salado they have lost about 10 calves over the last year. Cosper said regardless of the birds’ taxonomy, the result is the same.
“It was those black-headed buzzards, vultures, Mexican buzzards or whatever they’re called. We were in the pasture and we found a baby calf. It was all right. It was up and had nursed and was doing fine,” Cosper said. “And the next afternoon, I was looking for it just to make sure everything’s OK and my goodness, I bet you there were 20 buzzards around that calf. They had him picked clean.”
Dealing with these birds of prey is a dilemma. To ward off the vultures, ranchers would have to spend all their time in their pastures during calving season. And black buzzards are protected under the Migratory Bird Act.
Capt. Robert Goodrich, with the Texas Parks and Wildlife Department, said “They are a federally protected bird.” To legally kill the vultures, “You have to get a permit from the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Department.”
Bell County trapper Gary Silvers has that permit. He said he has trapped up to 70 black buzzards at one time.
“I try to find some kind of road kill, raccoons and opossums,” Silvers said. “I make a trap out of cattle panels. They walk in there, they trip the gate and they can’t get out.”
Silvers then shotguns the vultures and buries them. He said the vultures “smell just like dead animals.”
For about a decade, Silvers has been taking calls for help with vulture problems.
Ian Tizard, director of the Texas A & M University’s Schubot Exotic Bird Center, said no one is sure why black vultures are attacking newborn calves.
“I don’t believe for a minute they’re going to wait for the last pulse of a dying animal,” Izard said. “Whether it’s a new behavior, I don’t know. I strongly suspect it’s related to a weak calf … and I also suspect finding afterbirth for food is a factor.”
Through the 25 years Izard has been at College Station, he said black vultures have surpassed in numbers the turkey buzzards.
“Certainly black buzzards are prospering. It could be global warming, or more road kill. There’s simply no doubt they’re moving northward.”
Ranchers in Bell County say they need help with the problem. One spring calf would sell for about $500 in the fall. With the loss of several animals, that number could quickly reach into the thousands.
Izard said that one rancher frustrated with black vultures killing calves took a proactive measure. He built a large, buzzard-proof cage and uses it for a birthing unit.
