AFRICAN VULTURES.

Manawatu Standard, Volume LVI, Issue 63, 12 February 1936, Page 5

AFRICAN VULTURES.

INTRODUCTION SUGGESTED. Although Dr E. Pockley, of Killaru, acknowledges “that he is skating on very thin ice,” he suggests that the introduction of African vultures into Australia might prove of value in combating the sheep fly post by clearing up the carcases of dead animals (says a Sydney paper). “Australia is the only continent where the vulture family is not found,” Dr. Pockley states. “1 have never heard of the vulture being b pest anywhere. It is purely t> a carrion feeder, and does not possess the power of claw necessary for carrying off food, and will only under very exceptional circumstances approach any animal that shows any sign of life. “They do not hunt for food like the birds of prey, but float about in space till, by their quite uncanny power of vision, they spot a dead beast, which they apparently can distinguish from one that is merely resting. “In Africa, after shooting an animal for food, I have often reclined, glasses in hand, and surveyed the blue, and although there may not be a vulture in sight in a very short while one will see tiny specks far away in tho heavens converging towards their prospective feast. Others further off interpret what they are after and follow, and in a matter of a very few hours tho bones of tho largest animals are picked clean.”