Shadow The Black Vulture

The following story about a black vulture was submitted by All Things Wild Rehabilitation in Texas.

Last month, Animal Control responded to a call about a black vulture who was harassing people in a neighborhood. The caller wanted the vulture captured and removed, so the young black vulture was brought to All Things Wild. We kept him in a large, outside enclosure for a few days, but with nothing wrong, we let him go.

He didn’t leave but hung around running up to staff and volunteers flapping his wings, baby-style, and pecking at shoes. He was obviously imprinted on humans. How? We don’t know. Perhaps he was found as a little orphan, raised by someone, then released to fend for himself. Of course, the first thing he did was run up to people looking for food.

We named him Shadow because he was always nearby watching, waiting eagerly for a handout. You would be cleaning an outside enclosure, look around, and Shadow would be standing there watching you. We fed him dog food, chicken necks, and food scraps from the other meat-eating animals in rehabilitation. When he wanted food, he would sit outside the window over the big sink in the food prep area. He was hard to miss.

We did not see Shadow for about three days. We hoped he decided to leave with a group of visiting black vultures and wished him a wonderful, wild life. But no. Shadow reappeared, and he was very hungry. After gobbling down about 20 or so raw chicken hearts, he went into a digestive stupor, which someone called a food coma, for several hours. He hung around the center for the rest of that day and was seen silhouetted against the evening sky perched on top of the ambassador raptor enclosure. From there he flew east over the fields as the sun set. After that, he would leave, sometimes for several days, but he would always return.

A couple of weeks ago, Shadow returned from his adventures with a severe wound on his back. The wound consisted of a large puncture and a long scratch. Of course, we will never know what attacked him, but we suspect an animal with claws like a coyote or bobcat. Fortunately, he escaped and returned to us. But he was in really bad shape.

For a while, we kept Shadow in our ICU where we fed him EmerAid IC Carnivore to help him heal. The wound was treated and bandaged, and Shadow was put on a course of painkillers and antibiotics. However, as he healed, we let him fly freely about our building where he made friends with our ambassador squirrel Ozzie.

Shadow continued to do well, but his defecating made a mess in the building. We put him outside in a large flight enclosure. There, he loves to eat raw chicken legs and continues to heal. Before long we will be able to set him free again. Our fingers will be crossed that he doesn’t get attacked again, and he always returns safely to us from his adventures.