Black Vulture Nest Success, Fledgling Movement and Survival

Black vultures are a known issue within agricultural and suburban/urban environments but little is understood relative to their population status, life history traits, and movements within the landscape. To adequately determine the potential for multiple management strategies to deal with the species and the vulture-human conflicts that exist and appear to be increasing, more information is needed to assess these gaps in our knowledge of the species. We propose a project involving black vulture nest monitoring and GPS telemetry of fledgling vultures to fill some of the areas in which we lack proper parameter estimates on the population or their behaviors. Specifically the proposed objectives/deliverables are: 1. Determine the fate of black vulture nests, including identification of nest predators within the mid-South 2. Obtain nest survival and chick to fledgling recruitment estimates 3. Estimate survival, home range, and movement characteristics of fledgling black vultures