Monika Leininger
Mleinin1@uwyo.edu
The University of Wyoming has been the long-time residency of unique turkey buzzards to our campus. In the warmer seasons you can see these fascinating vultures flocking around dead animals near the tree neighborhood of Laramie. These vultures bring an inimitable diversity to the community. However, for several years the University of Wyoming has been making futile efforts in discouraging these vultures’ presence and habitation on the university campus.
Many would think that these vultures are harmless to the campus community, however their inhabitance has really ruffled some feathers of the staff and faculty of Old Main. Many employees will tell you that they despise the vultures for their inevitable defecation. The vultures not only excrete a terrible smell but also leave feathers littering the sidewalk.
The grounds services department of the university has tried several strategies to dispirit the vultures’ inevitable manifestation in the tall Douglas firs near old main. The first strategy deployed was the installation of sprinklers on the roof of Old Main in hopes to spray the buzzards and keep them at bay. This strategy was ineffective because there wasn’t a way to get enough water pressure to the roof of the building. Next, the grounds department bought a noise machine, which emits the sounds of predatory cats in hopes to scare off the vultures. This strategy was again futile in the fact that the vultures entirely ignored the machine and went about their business. The final, and most successful strategy to date was the purchase of several prosthetic vultures. The grounds team had done research to come to the conclusion that vultures don’t like to be around the dead of their own kind. So when the fake vultures were installed in a tree the birds would vacate that particular tree and move to an adjacent one. However, once again this plan backfired when the expensive, prosthetic vultures started disappearing from campus. Apparently having your very own, fake turkey buzzard is a hot commodity among college students.
It’s time for the university to take a step back from these irrational and bizarre measures to deter these noble beasts. We as a community need to embrace our vulture culture for several reasons. First off, the vultures pose no real danger to us. They only eat dead animals, not anything that has blood actively pumping through its veins. So even if you happened to take a nap in the courtyard over by Old Main, you might wake up to a couple vultures flying overhead, eyeing your limp body, but you will most likely still have all of your flesh and organs when you wake up.
Next, the vultures are doing us a real solid by helping to decompose waste. If you haven’t noticed, the town of Laramie has an exponentially growing bunny population problem. Pretty much everywhere you go in Laramie you can see that there are bunnies literally f***ing everywhere. This is because there is no true predator for these little critters and they procreate at a faster rate than many other species. So by the chance that a senseless bunny runs into the way of a moving vehicle, the vultures do God’s work by feasting on its tiny little corpse.
A final reason we should welcome the vultures is that we have created the perfect habitat for their existence. If you haven’t noticed, we do not have any tall Douglas fir trees outside city limits. This is because these trees aren’t native to the high plains of Wyoming and were planted specifically for aesthetic purposes. But now, these age-old Douglas firs are fulfilling their true potential by being host to these honorable giants.
The time has come to stand up for your fellow feathery, friendly, flock of birds. These turkey buzzards bring a distinguished sense of biodiversity to the campus while also helping keep the web of life in balance. Next time you see several vultures swarming around an area, give a shout out to these magnificent birds of prey
