Vultures eat anthrax, botulism, rabies, & cholera for breakfast.

Their stomach acid is among the most corrosive in the animal kingdom, with a pH around 1, low enough to dissolve the bones, hide, & pathogens of dead animals that would kill almost anything else.

A vulture eating a diseased carcass isn't a vector for disease, it's the end of the line. The disease chain ends in the vulture's gut, & that's pretty hardcore.

When vulture populations crashed in India in the 1990s, rotting livestock carcasses sat where vultures used to clean them.

Feral dogs and rats took over the cleanup, both of which actually do spread rabies. Researchers later linked the vulture collapse to roughly 500,000 deaths in India over the following decade.

The same collapse is now underway in sub-Saharan Africa. 6 of 11 African vulture species are threatened with extinction, primarily from poisoned poaching baits.

The animals nobody finds cute are doing more public health work than most of the species we actively protect.
#Birds

Will you stop stalking me, human? I'm trying to build a nest here! Penduline tit (Remiz pendulinus, 🇩🇪 Beutelmeise, 🇵🇱 remiz).

#birds #birdphotography #birdsofmastodon #birdwatching #nature #naturephotography #vogelflausch #ptaki #VogelVonVorne

Happy World Curlew Day! I adore these birds!

World Curlew Day is intended to raise awareness of the urgent plight of curlews, which are facing severe population declines globally due to habitat loss, climate change, and predation by non-native species like pets.

I took this photo in Lamington National Park in the Gold Coast Hinterland, Queensland. #birds

Iconic #birds of #Venezuela 🇻🇪 #Mexico 🇲🇽 #Honduras 🇭🇳 Keel-billed #Toucans are rainbow flocks of rainforest joy! 🦜🐦🪽 Help them survive be #vegan and call out #poaching and the illegal pet trade #Boycottpalmoil 🌴❌ #Boycott4Wildlife

palmoildetectives.com/2026/04/…

With jet black plumage 🖤 and bright green 💚 wattles, male Western Parotia #birds 🐦🦜🦚 of paradise gleam like scaly armour when they dance 🎶 Resist against their #extinction in #WestPapua when you #Boycottpalmoil 🌴🚫 #Boycott4Wildlife

palmoildetectives.com/2026/01/…

Rainbow lorikeet anyone?

#timelinecleanse #lorikeet #parrot #birds