Bummer: Boom Of Kentucky Turkey Vultures Is Your Fault For Refusing To Buy An EV

Don’t you feel ashamed of yourself?

Kansas Turkey Vulture Boom Could Be a Sign of Climate Change

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If you’ve noticed more of these foreboding figures (Kentucky Turkey vultures) circling in the skies above you lately, you’re not imagining things. It might have something to do with climate change and the stench of rotting flesh, the Kansas News Service reports.

Chuck Otte, secretary of the Kansas Bird Records Committee and a Kansas State University extension agent in Geary County, described the scene in central Salina as one that’s become increasingly common across central and western Kansas.

“Go back into the ’80s and ‘90s,” Otte said, “and we just didn’t see that many turkey vultures in urban areas, even small towns.”

But over the past two decades, committees of vultures have begun to descend upon Kansas in greater numbers.

While other species of birds have seen their populations freefall, Otte said the population of turkey vultures has doubled nationwide since 1966. And because the birds are federally protected, harming them or their nests is prohibited.

See, it couldn’t be due to their populations increasing due to the federal protection (which, isn’t that rather the f’ing point?????), nope, it’s because of a slight 1.5F degree increase in the global temperature over 170 years

“For dead animals to start decaying,” Otte said, “you need to have heat.”

Turkey vultures have the largest olfactory systems of all birds and can smell decaying flesh from over a mile away. But during colder months, Kansas roads can’t warm roadkill enough to get it rotting.

So historically, winter sightings of turkey vultures in Kansas were virtually unheard of. But Otte said climate change could eventually make Kansas a welcoming year-round habitat.

Wait, they come when it’s warm? Huh. Soon, though doom!

The growth and spread of civilization can also invite vultures to set up shop in cities and towns where maybe there didn’t used to be much rotting meat lying around.

“We have more cars, and cars and animals have collisions on the roadways,” Otte said. “That provides more food for them.”

And it’s the fault of all those people driving fossil fueled vehicles!