BELLA VISTA, Ark. — The Arkansas Game and Fish Commission (AGFC) is asking the public for help in spotting special tagged black vultures.
This comes as residents in Bella Vista see an increase in vultures around town.
89 black vultures were trapped and tagged near the Arkansas-Missouri border. The special tags are fitted to the birds' wings as part of a multi-year study by the AGFC and the U.S. Department of Agriculture to "better mediate conflicts with black vultures," a release from AGFC said.
The birds, which can be aggressive and cause property damage, are a growing problem in Bella Vista.
"They're gross and nasty, and I don't really like them" said True Love, who lives in Bella Vista. "I like to run around and scare them. They’re funny when they fly away."
Madison Taylor, Clinic Manager at Northsong Wild Bird Rehabilitation, said that while the birds can be a nuisance, vultures are vital.
"They're actually very good for our environment," Taylor said. "They scavenge on all of the dead and decaying animals that have passed for some reason, to kind of keep all of our environment clean."
The commission says that black vultures and turkey vultures play an important role in the ecosystem by eating dead animals, but that the aggression exhibited by black vultures can cause issues for cattle ranchers and livestock.
"They usually target [animals] that are like ill or like new easy prey," Taylor said. "They're not going to prey on any household animals unless it is dead."
"They want to stand on something that's flat. A dead animal that's not going to fight back so that they can actually scavenge and pull apart," Taylor added.
She said there isn't a clear reason why Bella Vista could be seeing so many.
"We might see them more because we are growing so much and having more streets and more people driving on them. So therefore, there's more opportunities to have things like roadkill," Taylor speculated.
The commission warns against trying to kill them, as the birds are protected by the Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 and can't killed without a permit obtained through the Arkansas Farm Bureau.
Birdwatchers, livestock owners, landowners and anyone else is encouraged to report tagged birds to the United States Geological Survey’s Bird Banding Lab online at reportband.gov.
"If you notice one or two, if you could just kind of scare them away, they usually go on and don't really come back," Taylor said. If it's a big flock of vultures, they've already kind of established that as their kind of habitat. So you're not going to have much luck trying to get a whole flock away."
To read more about the USDA and AGFC study, as well as the effects black vultures can have, click here.
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