Black Vulture Attacks on Animals May Be Increasing

But some bird experts say reports of increasing predation by black vultures in the Midwest may be overblown.

The scenes described of Indiana farmlands and elsewhere seem like they leapt from a page in a horror novel, with black vultures descending into the forests and pastures of the Midwest and beyond. Farmers tell of ferocious attacks on their animals: wakes of funereal, hunch-shouldered large black birds feasting on newborn calves as they emerge from their mothers, and sometimes preying on the mothers themselves. “The last couple of years they have gotten really aggressive,” said John Hardin, a livestock producer in Scott County in southern Indiana, about 20 miles north of Louisville, Ky., who often sees eight to 10 of the birds on his farm. At least two of his calves have been killed by vultures, perhaps more. “They like the navel area and they will take it all the way down to the bone and hide.”