Turkey vultures are obligate scavengers, which means they only feed on dead animals. Their incredible sense of smell can detect dilute volatile gasses coming from the bodies of dead animals, even while soaring hundreds of feet in the air. Turkey Vultures do not hunt or kill their own food, so their sharp beaks are only used for tearing open tough hides and shredding large sections of flesh on animals that are already dead.

They have a very robust immune system, and can eat carcasses contaminated with pathogenic bacteria (i.e. anthrax, botulism, cholera and salmonella, etc.), usually without being affected. This is what makes them ?Nature?s Clean-Up Crew?, ensuring these pathogens and bacterium are removed from the environment. But they are vulnerable to certain toxins and chemical agents such as those found in pesticides and rodenticides. They are also highly susceptible to lead, which can be found in the environment due to human activities, including hunting with lead bullets (if they eat the carcasses or offal discarded by hunters that contain bullet fragments).

Turkey Vultures are ubiquitous around the world. They cover extensive surfaces of land while searching for food, and there are both resident and migratory populations in California. I work with a team of researchers that have studied Turkey Vultures for over 50 years, with multiple peer-reviewed articles on the subject of environmental contaminants using Turkey Vultures as sentinels, and these studies have contributed to the establishment of state regulations such as the bans on lead bullets and anticoagulant rodenticides in California. For more information on our research, you can visit:

• bloomresearch(dot)org/turkey-vultures
• bloomresearch(dot)org/rodenticides
• bloomresearch(dot)org/lead

I designed this shirt based on a photograph I took of a Turkey Vulture in flight - many people think vultures are ugly or scary, so I wanted to create an image that showed how I view these immeasurably valuable birds that serve such an important purpose. Each sale will contribute to our work through Bloom Research Inc., founded by Peter Bloom, a raptor biologist most well-known for leading the team that captured the last of the wild California Condors back in the 1980's.