A couple of beautiful neighbors, captured from our tiny house.
I love vultures. They are majestic animals. They serve a very important function in the ecosystem. (Cleaning up and making use of carcasses.) And they likely wish to have a good life and avoid suffering, just like me.
I also know they sometimes have a bad reputation. (The locals here inexplicably poison them.)
Why? I am not sure.
Here is one guess: We have an instinctual aversion to anything rotten, put in place through natural selection. (The ones who didn’t have that aversion were more likely to not survive long enough to bring up children.) Maybe some associate vultures with something rotten, and transfer their aversion to the vultures? If so, it doesn’t make much logical sense. (Which is not unusual.) It would be more appropriate to thank and praise them for removing rotting flesh from the landscape.