RANGE | These birds are one of the most widespread vultures in the Americas, with an estimated population of more than 4 million. Individuals reside throughout North America, Central America, and South America. They are found in open and semi-open areas throughout the Americas, sometimes migrating great distances to avoid colder temperatures in winter. range spreads from southern Canada all the way through North and Central America, into Chile and down to Cape Horn.

FUN FACTS | Turkey vultures are easily some of the most underappreciated creatures. They can smell a dead animal from several miles away and scavenge on the carrion (dead animal carcasses), relying on their incredibly strong stomach acid to kill bacteria and toxins that can be deadly to other animals and people- including salmonella, anthrax and others.The lack of feathers on their head prevents meat scraps from collecting so they can easily pick off or wash off their head. If approached by a predator while eating, they vomit the decaying food in their stomachs. This deters the predator from approaching and makes the bird lighter to enable them to get into the air. After a meal, they often find a perch and turn their back to the sun to use the heat to bake off the germs from the carcass. They pee down their legs, often to cool themselves, and their highly acidic urine acts as a sanitizer and kills the bacteria on their feet.

These two vultures were brought into a wildlife center after they were kept illegally as pets for over a year, confined to a small dark space in a wire dog run that was covered with tarps so nobody saw them. Upon arrival at the wildlife center, it was immediately obvious that one of them had an untreated injury to a wing that had healed improperly. Both were deemed non-releasable since they had grown too comfortable around people. So, they reached out to us about providing this brother and sister pair a new home and, since we had just constructed some new bird enclosures, we were able to say yes.

We named them Wednesday and Pugsley, after the brother and sister from the Adams Family tv series. Then, to our great surprise, a few years later they both began laying lovely cream-colored eggs with burgundy-colored flecks! Proof that neither of these birds is male!

In true vulture fashion, Wednesday and Pugsley are very motivated to pick things out of other things. For enrichment, we put toys and treats in tubes, boxes or things like hay held together with streamers so they can work at discovering their new item. We hang items from plastic chains that they have to work at as they move.