predators animals in bella vista arkansas

The deer population of Northwest Arkansas started booming in the 1990s thanks in part to restrictions on hunting in the region imposed by the Game and Fish Commission in prior decades. Deer - through natural death, being hit by traffic or fatal injury - increased the local food supply for vultures. The bird's expansion into Northwest Arkansas coincides with a boom in the region's deer population and the two are clearly related, Neal said. 'Then in the 1990s, we started seeing them every year.' 'We only saw these birds in the winter sporadically in the 1970s and '80s' in Northwest Arkansas, he said. He is secretary of the Northwest Arkansas Audubon Society. The vultures are common during all seasons of the year as far north as Maryland and are sometimes spotted all year as far north as Pennsylvania and Ohio, according to the National Audubon Society, a nonprofit group that protects birds.Īudubon Societies throughout the United States track birds yearly in their 'Christmas Bird Count,' said Neal. Black vultures are also protected by this treaty about migratory birds, but they do not migrate much, Burkham said. Mexico, Japan and Russia joined the treaty in later years.

The Migratory Bird Treaty Act of 1918 brought the United States into a treaty with Canada to prohibit the killing, capturing, selling, trading, and transport of certain protected bird species. The attacks began because a century-old effort to protect a wide variety of birds worked, he said. Nothing suddenly turned black vultures aggressive, Burkham said. The more common, red-headed turkey vulture, which has a better sense of smell, always scavenges and isn't a problem. 'When I got there and they flew away, she fell to the ground exhausted but she'd saved her baby.'īlack vultures normally scavenge for food, said both Neal and Cody Burkham, executive vice president of the Arkansas Cattlemen's Association. 'I saw a cow running in circles around her calf' to fend the birds off from what seemed like 100 of the predators, Carter said.

'Farmers don't have time to stand around in their fields all day watching their cattle.'įarmers and even cattle have few doubts on the matter, Carter said. 'They do some real damage, but no one can say at what level,' Neal said. No one keeps track of attacks statewide attributed to vultures, all sides acknowledge. The birds gathered at the calf carcasses and were seen as the culprits. Investigators found a pack of feral dogs was responsible. I'm sure it happens,' Neal said.īut he cited a 2017 case in Newton County where the birds were blamed for some calf deaths. 'I'm the last person in the world who'd tell you black vultures have never gotten a calf out in a field. Yet all the data is anecdotal, creating at least the danger of missing other problems, said Joe Neal, a retired wildlife biologist and co-author of a book on the birds of Northwest Arkansas. Smaller livestock such as sheep are at even greater risk, those accounts and regulators say. Problems with the vultures in other states are worse, according to news accounts and regulators. 'I've ridden into flocks of them on a four-wheeler to scare them off, and they didn't scatter until I got there.' 'They aren't afraid of you,' Carter said.

He has seen the birds perch on the hindquarters of a cow, attacking a calf during birth. He lost seven calves in no more than three weeks in 2015, he said. 'I've lost calves every spring and fall for the last five years,' said Matt Carter, who raises cattle near Batesville. Killing as few as three vultures should protect a herd if their carcasses are left posted as a warning to others, according to federal guidelines. Livestock owners can go through the federation's website to obtain one of the 100 permits available. The Arkansas Farm Bureau Federation, which advocates on behalf of farmers and other rural residents, recently obtained the needed federal permission to kill a limited number of the birds. 'There's no mistaking it.'īlack vultures kill an unknown number of cattle in Arkansas each year, and the attacks have grown from a rare event into a frequent occurrence, according to cattle owners, groups representing them and regulators. 'I don't want to be graphic, but black vultures have a definite method of operation in how they attack,' Horn said. The body bore all the signs of a predator attack. He found the calf dead that evening two months ago at his farm near Lincoln. Ronnie Horn saw the newborn calf moving awkwardly and slowly as he drove past the pasture on his way to work at the Washington County Extension Service.

Predators animals in bella vista arkansas