This is a topic I've been mulling over for about a week now, but I was wondering what the opinion is amongst ZooChatters on this topic. I'm also quite interested in what countries is it still prelevant to display them like this. I can't think of anywhere in the UK that does, can anyone prove me wrong? For the record, I'm against pinioning any bird but feel BOP's (along with parrots but that's a different thread!) come off the worst as, if you see one flying in the wild, it is such a spectacular sight and it really bothers me when a vulture (Common example!) is reduced to jumping around an enclosure, being nothing more than decoration. My thoughts on tethered birds are quite similar, depending on how often they are regularly used in flying displays. Permanently injured birds are obviously ineligible but wherever possible I like to see my birds of prey flying in a decent aviary! Anyone else have an opinion?
I personally dislike it a lot as well and it seems extremely common in the US and less so in Europe. I have seen pinioned birds of prey (mainly Griffion vultures) in Duisburg, Gelsenkirchen and Mulhouse. I can't remember having seen them anywhere else... Except in Gelsenkirchen the animals were in breeding situations, in Gelsenkirchen they were useless aesthetics in a savannah exhibit. Comparing these exhibits to the huge aviary in Tierpark Berlin or any other zoo that has a size-able group in a large aviary makes for an extreme comparison, both for the birds but also for the visitor experience.
That was my feeling as well, they seem to share with hoofstock quite a lot so stress levels can't be good. On a related note, what's the deal with Doue's Himalayan exhibit? It's open-topped the vultures seem to be able to at least flap about, anyone know what's going on there?
Many thanks, not sure how I feel about that as the birds are still restricted but can at least hop up and glide back down.
I don't like to see them pinioned, they are built for soaring and using their wings a lot. That said, rescues unable to fly live seeming decent and long lives. I worked with a Rough-legged Hawk (or Buzzard ) that had sustained a major injury to one wing, which had then been amputated. She lived an extremely long life and was a very calm and gentle bird. On the flip side, I know many zoos here in the US keep African vultures pinioned in hoof stock enclosures (especially Ruppell's Griffon) which I understand can have mixed results. Sometimes they mix just fine, other times the vultures get hurt or killed. Personally, I would rather see the raptors in a large aviary rather than pinioned.
I don’t really like seeing birds of prey hopping about in some savannah exhibit. These animals are meant to fly and should be given access to there natural behavior. It’s almost unattractive to me to see vultures not in an aviary environment because it just doesn’t look right to me.
Public opinion and animal welfare considerations have influenced this debate, and thankfully this practice will hopefully disappear. There has been a move towards having free-flight displays with birds of prey, not only in falconry centres but also main-stream zoos, and this is a far more progressive way of showing these wonderful birds to the public. I find it upsetting to see severely flight impaired raptors in captivity.
Having just returned from watching wild vultures in France, I think captive birds of prey can never be exhibited in any way that closely resembles their natural life. Housing of captive birds of prey - apart from falconry displays and free-flying demonstrations to an extent, just don't work for me. In captivity, even in free-flight situations, they can never truly soar and use thermals in the way they were designed to.
In Norway, zoos generally can't house bird of prey because of legal reasons. There are however eurasian eagle owl in a semi-large aviary in Kristiansand dyrepark. I think bird of prey only should be displayed if they have the opportunity to fly, preferably in large aviaries, like the one in Kristiansand. The exception is obviously if they are rescued specimens, unable to return to the wild.
Pelicans and storks also soar. How do you feel about those? Birds of prey in the wild spend most of their time sitting about, like many mammalian predators.
Not the same. They also spend a lot of time either swimming(Pelicans) or walking/ground dwelling(Storks). I think Vultures make relatively more use of soaring than those species. I appreciate vultures and bop generally are inactive a lot of the time but I still don't think birds of prey make good captive subjects unless they are 'flown' very regularly.
I agree. If you give pelicans and storks the oppurunity to fly they might do it, but they mostly will just swim or walk.
A good measure of how poorly a species is adapted to its captive conditions are the behavioural problems it expresses. For example highly intelligent species show a range of behavioural pathologies when kept inadequately. What are the impacts of depriving vultures of the opportunity to fly long distances and soar? There are no behavioural problems that I am aware of that are brought by this deprivation. Vultures generally do well in captivity and show few zoonoses if kept well.
Very interesting thread. I'm not a fan of pinioning or wing clipping and vultures bother me the most. At least waterfowl can swim and walk around and storks, flamingos, and cranes can walk around. Parrots can at least climb. Vultures just hop around awkwardly and spend a lot of time sitting on logs covered with excrement. I'm not sure how practical it is to build an aviary but it would be nice to see an zoo try it.
Vulture aviaries are the standard in Europe, there are plenty of good examples around like in TP Berlin and Diergaarde Blijdorp.
Flight restricted vultures seem to be more of a thing in American zoos. I only recall one example of wing clipped vultures in the UK in recent years, and those are now flying in an aviary. I know at least one old pinioned bird, but am pretty sure BIAZA would frown on flight restricting any bird of prey now, especially pinioning. Increasingly, birds if other orders are not being pinioned.
The thing with vultures is also, they can be kept with other non-raptor birds. In Antwerpen they keep two species (hooded and rüppell's) in their large savanna aviary which is home to birds as small as starlings, doves and rollers. In Gaiazoo they also keep vultures with a bunch of small birds like waders, ducks and pigeons. There are some exceptions of-course. Black vultures for example tend to eat relatively more living food then most other species, so they might not be the best species to keep with small, breeding species. Certain birds of prey like kites are also kept in mixed aviaries from time to time, as they are often more scavengers then real hunters. Bateleur are also mostly scavengers, but they don't breed well and tend to be very aggressive when breeding so they might not be the preferred species for large mixed aviaries.
