Scavengers, an underestimated part of biodiversity
A still underestimated part of biodiversity: large herbivores are food for large carnivores, and for many other species - from the large scavengers (carrion eaters) like vultures, to the small, but often abundant carrion beetles, maggots, etc. Large herbivores are also important for dung eaters: their droppings are not polluted with medicines as is often the case with farm animals. Rare fungi, several insects (dung beetles, even butterflies) and many other species are dependant on the droppings. The large insects are important for insect eating species as bats, birds and other smaller and larger animals: it is all part of the ecosystem.
Vultures are medium to large-sized scavenging birds, feeding mostly on the carcasses of dead animals. Vultures do not generally kill their own prey and they feed largely on dead animals. As scavengers, vultures play an important role in the ecosystem by contributing to the decomposition of dead animal matter, cleaning the environment and reducing the spread of diseases. They are classified into two groups: Old World and New World vultures. Recent DNA evidence suggests the two groups are not directly related and similarities between them are considered to be a result of convergent evolution rather than a close relationship.
In Eurasia only Old World vultures are found. Unlike New World vultures, which have a highly developed sense of smell, Old World vultures find carcasses exclusively by sight like other birds from this family do with their living prey.
Recent developments
Across the European Union scavengers are threatened with extinction owing to a well-intended but ill-conceived regulation introduced by the EU government in Brussels. This regulation (1774/2002) dates from the year 2002, where the fear of BSE or “mad cow disease” was rampant in Europe and the EU, which issued a number of new directives to protect the population as much as possible from exposure to the epidemic. As part of these new regulations, it was decreed that dead cows, sheep, goats and horses would need to be disposed of in a licensed animal disposal facilities.
Before this new regulations it was normal that when farmed animals died in remote and inaccessible pastures, particularly in Mediterranean countries, they were either left where they were or were taken to designated carcass dumps.
Eagles, vultures, wolves and brown bears, insects etc. would scavenge on the carrion.
Dead animals for new life
Nowadays this is not possible anymore: all dead animals, if owned by somebody, have to be taken away from their environment, which heavily impacts the population of scavengers.
- Vultures are suffering as a result of the new food shortage. In May 2003 the EU introduced an exception that permits animal carcasses to be laid out in special, fenced-off feeding areas. But there are not nearly enough of these feeding stations and scavengers are struggling.
- This lack of food has led a number of vultures in Spain to change their eating habits. Although the birds have occasionally attacked newborn, sick and unmoving animals, this has become far more frequent in recent years.
- Farmers who were previously happy to leave dead animals to the scavengers are less keen to see the birds come after living animals and have called on Spanish officials to increase pressure on EU officials to amend the regulation.
- Hunger has driven many vultures out of Spain and into areas where they are not native. Flocks of the large scavengers have been sighted in Germany, Belgium and France. A perceived positive trend of vulture habitat expansion in Europe may actually be hiding severe food shortages in the natural strongholds of these birds.
- The situation for flightless scavengers such as brown bears is even worse than that of vultures, as migration into new areas of Europe is much more problematic.
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