Head to head
Turkey Vulture vs California Condor
The turkey vulture and the California condor are both New World vultures, a family unrelated to the vultures of Africa and Asia. They share bald heads, a scavenging diet, and effortless soaring flight, and the condor even relies on turkey vultures to help it find food. But one is among the most numerous large birds in the Americas and the other came within a few individuals of vanishing forever.
| Turkey Vulture | California Condor | |
|---|---|---|
| Scientific name | Cathartes aura | Gymnogyps californianus |
| Wingspan | About 1.7 m | Up to about 3 m |
| Weight | Under 2 kg | About 7 to 10 kg |
| Range | Southern Canada to southern South America | A few release areas in California, Arizona, Utah, and Baja California |
| Finds food by | Smell, detecting carcass gases from the air | Sight, and by watching other scavengers |
| Breeding rate | Two eggs a year | One egg every one to two years |
| Main threat | Few; locally, poisoning and vehicle strikes | Lead poisoning from spent ammunition in carcasses |
| Conservation status | Least Concern | Critically Endangered |
Turkey Vulture vs Condor: common questions
Is a turkey vulture a kind of condor?
They are in the same family, the New World vultures, but they are different birds in different genera. The California condor and the Andean condor are the two living condors, the largest members of the family. The turkey vulture is a smaller, far more numerous relative. They do work together in a sense: turkey vultures are excellent at smelling out carcasses but cannot always open a tough hide, while condors and the larger black vulture have poor noses but powerful bills, so condors frequently locate food by following turkey vultures to it and then take over the carcass.
How did the California condor nearly go extinct?
Its decline ran for over a century, driven by shooting, poisoning aimed at predators, collision with power lines, egg collecting, and habitat loss, but the factor that nearly finished it, and still limits it, is lead. Condors feed on the carcasses and gut piles of animals shot by hunters, and fragments of lead bullets in that meat cause fatal lead poisoning. By 1982 there were only about 22 birds left. Between 1985 and 1987 every remaining wild condor was captured, and the species survived only in captivity at two facilities. Captive breeding and releases have rebuilt the population to several hundred, but without lead-free ammunition most wild condors still need regular testing and treatment for lead.
Do turkey vultures really find food by smell?
Yes, and it is unusual. Most birds have a modest sense of smell, but the turkey vulture has a large olfactory system and can pick up the scent of ethyl mercaptan and other gases released by a decomposing animal, even one hidden beneath a forest canopy where it cannot be seen. Gas companies have reportedly used this, adding mercaptan to pipelines and watching for circling vultures to reveal leaks. The related black vulture and the condors lack this ability and rely on vision, which is one reason they shadow turkey vultures. A turkey vulture generally prefers fairly fresh carcasses, within a day or so of death, rather than long-rotted ones.