More than 50 personnel were needed for the job, including bird handlers wearing sophisticated safety gear to capture each vulture and place them into individual boxes for the road trip. “It was phenomenal,” says Kerri Wolter, CEO of VulPro, who handled the complex translocation. “Coordinating and moving that number of birds without having one injury or compromised birds was incredible.”
The 163 vultures were not anesthetized before making their move. “You don’t drug vultures,” Wolter says. The tough critters also didn’t need food or drink on the trek. But the most serious worry was heat, with the soft surfaces of The truck was partially unclipped, the birds were stacked in single layers to allow for optimal ventilation, and the majority of the voyage was conducted at night to reduce temperatures.
