Forget what you know about vultures. Meet Bash.

she's captured my heart i'm absolutely head over heels for the black culture wanna say hi she has a penchant for zooming around and playing and adventuring with us she doesn't really like other black cultures she definitely recognizes us as her people hello bash we are robin and kayla with the american eagle foundation and this is basha's story for geobeats she was being circled by coyotes farmers discovered her on the ground and she shortly found her way here to us at the american eagle foundation she arrived with a right humeral fracture she would almost certainly have been caught by thy coyotes if not for human kindness the bond that we build with bash from the very beginning was built on the positivity of what we could offer her vultures especially choose their people and when you have the trust of the vultures it's amazing [Music] often she insists on spending what we call lap time with her human handlers where she essentially uses us as a perch and then just hangs out there have been moments when she's gotten a little bit away from us and she'll kind of look around and realize and crouch and be like wait i don't know are you coming when we started encouraging bash to come from her head out into the main part of the yard she was very hesitant of the door frame it's darker inside than it is outside it'll appear quite a bit more daunting [Music] oh my god so good we care for her through federal and state permits she had to get a veterinarian to sign the paperwork to indicate that she would not survive and thrive on her own in the wild bash is absolutely not our pet at the end of the day she's still a wild animal she chooses how much or little she wants to interact with us she's largely in control of her own diet her favorite food is definitely quail we joke that mice are her vegetables because mice are very complete nutritionally and good for her but she's like i don't want to eat these we expose her to fruits so far she has denied us every time we do have another black culture cujo who loves cantaloupe she loves watermelon cujo came to us 17 years ago and she is what we call a full human imprint she does not recognize herself as a black culture when she sees people she sees herself she's like oh that's what i am [Music] because they don't recognize each other as the same species we wouldn't probably introduce them to each other look how good cultures can develop a pretty expansive vocabulary cujo recognizes the term blue and she can do some color recognition and gesture with her beak to something blue it's been a real privilege getting to know bash seeing her kind of open up from this shy inquisitive young black culture i did this spunky sassy independent brave and bold black vulture that we know and love today if she wants to fly she can she's just not as graceful as you would expect two common myths about vultures is that when they're circling it always means they're after a dead animal and that they will wait and circle overhead for something to die typically when you see vultures circling they're just taking advantage of something called a thermal which are these pockets of hot air that ride into the sky and essentially serve as an elevator to higher heights for them and up there they may be just moving to a new location to roost some of the behaviors we look for with bash are the typical bird of prey contentment indicators like grooming her feathers what we call feeking where she's wiping her beak on things browsing where she kind of shakes out her feathers to rearrange them and general engagement with us if she's nervous or uncomfortable we'll immediately change the environment around her to make her feel more comfortable vultures often get an unfair reputation as being dirty nasty or even mean they do a ton of good for our environment they're specially adapted to stop the spread of diseases including anthrax rabies botulism due to the acidity of their stomachs kayla and i are both positively dedicated to staying with bash bash is 20 year old and we have another black vulture under a chair named buzz who is currently 34 years old so she has a long and happy life ahead of her with us i've never met a vulture that was not obsessed with shoelaces bash [Music]

Channel: GeoBeats Animals

Views: 1,237,582

Keywords: vultures, black vulture flying, black vulture eating, black vulture rescue, vulture rescue, wildlife rescue, wildlife rehab, wildlife, black vulture playing, black vulture with owners, animal rescue stories, bird rescue stories, cat and dog stories, bird stories, black vulture story, geobeats animals, interesting animal stories, viral animal rescue

Id: TYRCSk3m6iU

Length: 5min 0sec (300 seconds)

Published: Mon Jul 12 2021