mmslouisuac3

3  The Vulture of West Rushville, Ohio.

Many stories and eyewitness testimonies of mysterious giant birds having been purportedly observed in the United States, and in North America in general, are documented in Thunderbirds: America’s Living Legends of Giant Birds by Mark A. Hall. The book was first published in 1988 and was followed by a subsequent 2004 edition, which itself was reprinted in 2007 (New York: Cosimo, Inc.), the latter I examined.

On 81, Hall relays a 1972 story of a live vulture which was found in a Fairfield County, Ohio community:

 “Though not as large as other birds considered here, notice should be given to an enigmatic bird of prey that turned up in Ohio in 1972.  Its wingspan was 5 feet (1.7 meters).  Reportedly, it was identified by people at Ohio State University as an immature white-backed vulture (Pseudogyps) native to Africa.  The bird had been shot in one wing when it was found at West Rushville, east of Lancaster.  No one volunteered any explanation for this bird’s appearance.  Incidents such as this frustrate efforts to sort out with confidence the reported appearances of unusual animals.”

Page 190 refers to two sources, features articles of the The Lancaster Eagle-Gazette for August 8 and August 23, 1972.  On December 6, 2012, I queried by email the Fairfield County District Library of Lancaster, Ohio, and their staff (source anonymous) was gracious to have retrieved for me the requested information, which I present here.

 https://unknownandeancondor.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/lancastereg8ag72q.jpg

from Lancaster Eagle-Gazette, August 8, 1972

 https://unknownandeancondor.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/lancastereg23ag72o.jpg 

from Lancaster Eagle-Gazette, August 23, 1972

The reports do not explain a diagnosis for the actual species, which by default would be Gyps africanus Salvadori, 1865 if it was characterized as a “white-backed vulture, native to Africa.”  Hall’s use of the genus name Pseudogyps refers to earlier separate treatment of that species and the White-rumped or Indian White-backed Vulture G. bengalensis (Gmelin, 1788) as distinct from other Gyps (the name can be construed as a subgenus).  When I first became enlightened on this case, I had some speculations on the identity of the vulture species described, especially because the image I have from the August 8 Eagle-Gazette was taken from a transparency in the library’s holdings–not the original, which would allow for better scrutiny of the bird depicted.  Neither do I have an example of the original photograph.

https://unknownandeancondor.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/lancastereg8ag72r.jpg

The same image from above, tone inverted to emphasize the markedly white area delineating its outstretched wings.

Prior to querying the Fairfield County Public Library, I had interpreted Hall’s reference to suggest that the vulture was not alive when found.  Though it is clear that it was then “sent to” Hueston State Woods Park, this does not necessarily mean that it would have been released there, fully recovered or not.  Its ultimate disposition is not known from my researches.  I had tried querying the Ohio Department of Natural Resources but did not receive a response.  There are no specimens Gyps (Pseudogyps) vultures in the Ohio State University collection (pers. comm. Angelika Nelson, September 17/28, 2012).  Three zoological collections in the state were queried (June 19, 2013):  I would like to know, from the history of the Zoo during the period 1970–1972, were there any reports of escaped or missing vultures of this species?  Justin Smith of the Columbus Zoo and Aquarium informed me that their collection had two individuals of white-backed vultures (not further specific), both brought to the zoo in 1985; both had also died there, one in 1987, and the other in 1991. I learned that no vultures were reported missing from the Cincinnati Zoo & Botanical Garden: “[A]s far as we can tell, there were no missing or escaped vultures of this species during that time.” (pers. comm. Todd Miller, June 20, 2013).  No reply from Cleveland Metroparks to a similar general query I made.

Currently, Cleveland Metroparks Zoo includes a pair of White-backed Vultures (in addition to a pair of Andean Condors and a representative of the Hooded Vulture Necrosyrtes monachus).  The Cincinnati Zoo includes a single Rüppell’s Griffon Gyps rueppellii as well some four condors (2♀, 2 ♂).

The origin of the vulture of West Rushville was not clear, and as it is undoubtedly intriguing, did I have reason to question its identification.  Many accounts which I believe represent observations of Andean Condors (forthcoming posts) originated in Ohio, among many other places, and in a several of these Ohio sightings the condor was, in fact, diagnostically identified.  My findings on the Andean also show the summer months being the most prevalent time of year in which the sightings in North America occur; the timing of the finding of this individual in question furthers that intrigue. However, I tend to think that the given wingspan of this West Rushville bird (1.7 m.) might not apply to a condor as the measurement seems insufficient to what a juvenile would demonstrate when fully fledged and capable of flight; it is also a difficult matter here to argue for a juvenile Andean Condor traveling as an accidental as no other characters of the bird were identified to supply additional argument.  This, therefore, may have, more likely and in conformity with its diagnosis, been an instance of escape from a zoo or sanctuary, and perhaps some small closure can be reached with regards to evaluating the case.  No further information will be available to challenge the diagnosis despite the similarity a juvenile Andean bears with that of many of the Old World vulture species.  Given that Cincinnati is the closest of the three major cities to West Rushville, I might speculate as to the bird having escaped from their collection (that one was in the collection at the time) yet was not properly accounted as an escape.

There is also, to no less a degree, the possibility of its provenance from some other more remote location, and likewise was it not properly accounted.  I find argument in the occasional possibility of a zoological collection having an escape, even if it be a vulture, yet not always reporting, and I assume this due to the documented sighting of an unusual species completely unknown as a caged bird (Grey Go-away-bird Corythaixoides concolor), also African, which was reported in Gilbert, Arizona (Maricopa County) in 2007.  The nearby World Wildlife Zoo of nearby Glendale does so happen to have these included in its aviary, but the zoo’s representative had claimed that none its go-away-birds were then missing.  In the case of this mystery vulture, it would have been convenient had it been first seen near a metropolitan area (as was the case with the above go-away-birds and with the 2011 report of the Rufous-collared Sparrow Zonotrichia capensis [septentrionalis] of Georgetown, Colorado) to readily invoke it being an escape.  Indeed Fairfield County is very close to Columbus, but I can only further speculate that, as I was informed that the Columbus Zoo’s examples of Gyps africanus date only back to 1985, their records either do not go back as far as 1972 or perhaps one of the other Gyps, closely resembling the White-backed, was represented in their collection (if the West Rushville bird had been misidentified to species).

It was described as a “big black bird,” but as the illustration below shows, that characterization is overly generalized.

https://unknownandeancondor.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/bocageangola-ix.jpg 

Plate IX from Barboza du Bocage, Ornithologie d’Angola, of Gyps africanus.  Illustrated by John Gerrard Keulemans.

PROBABLE GRIFFON VULTURE IN FLORIDA

Also relevant to the discussion are two anomalous cases I will share relating to Old World Vultures having been reported in the United States.  The first of these pertains to a Gyps vulture having escaped from a zoo in Palm Beach County, Florida, in 1977.

In The Birdlife of Florida (Stevenson & Anderson), the authors mention—

“[Gyps sp.:  “Griffon-type Old World Vulture”]

Distribution:  Resident from s Europe to s Africa and w to se Asia (7 spp.)

Florida Status:  Escape.  P. Sykes reported an imm., not identified to species, from Lion Country Safari (Palm Beach Co.), flying “in and out of this [wildlife tourist] attraction” (Kale 1977a).”  [158]

Their original source (American Birds 31: 990, Florida Region by Herbert W. Kale II) I also quote—

“RAPTORS–Note to birders in the Palm Beach County area–an imm. Griffon-type Old World vulture from Lion Country Safari escaped being pinioned, and flies in and out of this tourist attraction daily to parts of the surrounding county (PWS).”

https://unknownandeancondor.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/gypsfulvus1.jpg 

Plate [I] of Vultur fulvus from John Gould’s Birds of Europe (1832–1837).  Hand-colored lithograph by John and Elizabeth Gould.

https://unknownandeancondor.files.wordpress.com/2015/09/dressereurope322.jpg

EGYPTIAN VULTURE IN VIRGINIA

Nineteenth-century illustration of an adult and immature Egyptian Vulture by John Gerrard Keulemans, plate 322 from Dresser, History of the Birds of Europe.

In their second edition of Hawks (2001), William S. Clark and Brian K. Wheeler include an entry for another Old World Vulture species having been reported in the states–the Egyptian Vulture Neophron percnopterus.  “The Egyptian Vulture, a small Old World Vulture, has occurred as a vagrant once in Virginia” [286].  This case is in reference to a December, 1985 sighting of the Egyptian in the state along the Chesapeake Bay.  The circumstances allude to the likelihood that the bird was not an escape, but rather a ship-assisted bird.  That the vulture was likely ship-assisted proved a fitting argument to my researches on the Andean Condor, and in forthcoming posts in this series will I elaborate further on this topic.

Once a common species on its breeding grounds and often a vagrant to the Britain in the time of the Goulds and Keulemans, the Egyptian Vulture is now like many of its congeners in decline.  In 2007, the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) dramatically revised its status from a Least Concern species to Endangered.  Likewise for the White-backed Vulture, which was also Least Concern a decade ago but in 2012 was listed as Endangered.  This a poignant aspect of the underlying mysteries of these remarkable birds–each individual, however remarkable its predicament, may ultimately come to serve as a crucial factor in the respective fates of their species.

Mathew Louis

Written September 21, 2015.

mathewspillouis

Wordpress:  UAC3 

_________________________________________________________________________________________

January 30, 2017

Karl Heck says:

"On 22 May, 1972 a mature African Griffon Vulture or Ruppell’s Vulture had escaped from it’s enclosure at the National Zoo in Washington D.C. This was definitely a mature bird as it had resided in captivity in D.C. for over 5 years since it was transferred from a South African Zoo."

This entry was posted in Andean Condor and tagged African White-backed Vulture, Andean Condor, Egyptian Vulture, Griffon Vulture, Mark Hall, Ohio, Thunderbirds, Vulture, West Rushville.