Black vultures now plague Ohio farmers
While black vultures have been harassing livestock for decades in southern states, their range appears to have expanded north and east in recent years. Complaints about the birds slaughtering livestock and destroying property also have increased, according to wildlife researchers.
Unlike turkey vultures, which eat carcasses and rarely attack livestock, black vultures will go after piglets, sheep and cows as well as dead animals.
They roost in dead trees, cell-phone towers and power lines in large packs - sometimes in the hundreds. They are nature's garbage disposals.
But the loss of forests has fragmented the birds' habitat, and an increase in landfills has made it easier for vultures to find food and expand their range, said Martin Lowney, the U.S. Department of Agriculture's director of wildlife services in Virginia.
It's not just sheep and cattle being targeted.
The vultures tear at roof shingles, lawn chairs, windshield wiper blades on cars and even pink plastic flamingoes in lawns.
"
They're just mean and ornery," said Andy Montoney, a biologist with the USDA in Columbus.
