Celebrating International Day of the Vulture at Columbia Crossing

LANCASTER COUNTY, Pa. (WHTM) — If you’re a black vulture, nothing starts the day off right like a big ball of raw hamburger.

Barron Von Vulture, a Raven Ridge Wildlife Center animal ambassador, is going to have a big day – the first Saturday in September is International Vulture Awareness Day, and Raven Ridge will be celebrating at Columbia Crossings River Trail Center in Lancaster County.

“It’s from 12 to 5,” says Tracie Young, Raven Ridge’s animal rehabber. “We’re going to have a lot of fun educational games, food trucks, presentations, and story reading. It’s a lot of fun. And this raises awareness about how amazing these creatures are, how important they are for the environment, and to help educate about vultures.”

Get daily news, weather, breaking news and alerts straight to your inbox! Sign up for the abc27 newsletters here

Vultures may be amazing creatures, but most of them are in trouble.

“Out of the 23 species around the world, the old world vultures and the new world vultures, they’re all threatened and endangered, except for the black vulture and the turkey vulture,” says Tracie. “What they’re realizing now is how important that they are in the ecosystem. So they’re starting to raise awareness of the vultures that are threatened and endangered.’

“Without the vultures, we would have so many more viruses, bacteria, parasites. So they’re the cleanup crew for the stuff that we don’t want to see or have around the environment. ‘

“They are able to eat an animal that died of anthrax, rabies, that dead deer that’s been sitting along the highway for a couple of days in the hot sun, their stomach acid is actually more acidic than a car battery that they’re able to digest fat.’

Tracie hopes events like the International Day of the Vulture will make people more aware of how important vultures are to our own well-being. And she says Barron does a lot to help people get past the “Ew, vultures!” mindset.

“He’s a people vulture. I’ve worked with Baron for almost six years now. Vultures are incredibly smart. We always say they pick their person. So I’m his person that he picked, and he is just amazing. He loves the attention. He loves educating out in the public, having his picture taken, of course. But he’s he’s just such a great ambassador for his species.”

For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to ABC27.