Trained Canarian Egyptian Vulture at Jurong Bird Park Singapore

In my previous posts I had mentioned about intelligence in birds and they were mostly about parrots, pigeons and crows. Birds of prey in the wild too have a high intelligence, the levels vary.

In fact no living bird is truly stupid. As juvenile birds grow in to independent adults, their inborn genetic information and skills watched and picked up from the parent birds help them survive in the world.

Trained Canarian Egyptian Vulture

It is in this juvenile state, the birds of prey are captured from the wild. They are then trained for various purposes. Training these birds is a lengthy and complicated process and a license to train such birds have to be obtained. Owners soon realize how smart the wild birds are and it is very different from owning and caring the pet birds.

trained vulture

Trained Canarian Egyptian vulture trying to crack an egg

In the wild natural habitats ravens use egyptian vultures to break open eggs and feast on them. It is a kind of robbery in world of birds. While ravens can scheme things vultures can plan and execute things well. Just when the vulture successfully breaks open the egg, the group of ravens waiting slyly attack the lone vulture aggressively.

Vultures have comparatively larger brains and can wield tools but they are not able to outsmart the ravens.

At Jurong Bird Park Singapore, the trainers of these Canarian Egyptian vultures demonstrated how vultures asses the size of eggs and devise different methods to crack them open.

The smaller ones were raised and dropped on a hard surface and for bigger ones they used stones. They would pick a reasonably big sized stone and drop it on the egg. White Vultures successfully displayed their skills. And the trainers constantly rewarding them with bits of meat.

Canarian Egyptian Vulture Singapore

Vulture Interesting Facts

  • A group of vultures is called committee, venue or volt. In flight they are called a kettle and a group feeding at a carcass, is called a wake. You can see a wake here – Vulture Sanctuary, Bikaner.
  • Vultures urinate on their feet and legs to keep themselves cool. Another effect of this is that its urine kills parasites and bacteria and helps keep the birds healthy.
  • A vulture’s ears are covered by a fine skin to stop food from getting in while the bird is eating so cannot be seen.
  • Vultures hunt using smell. They can detect a decaying carcass by the gas Mercaptan, which is given off when decay begins.
  • White-backed vultures are monogamous breeders and breed in the dry season, nesting with 2 to 13 birds in a loose colony.
  • A single egg is laid and incubation is by both parents, for about 56 days.

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Canarian Egyptian Vulture Jurong Bird Park Singapore

 

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