Garbage-eating vultures were ‘too drunk to fly’

Pair got help, sobered up and were on their way

“Thankfully, they returned home today, before our center could be labeled a ‘detox’ facility. “Christine Cummings Raptor specialist

What do you do with a drunken vulture?

Raptor specialist Christine Cummings and her staff were faced with that exact quandry over the weekend as they tended to two hammered buzzards at A Place Called Hope in Killingworth.

An animal control officer in Watertown found one bird near a meat market’s garbage container on Sunday and thought it might have been hit by a car, Cummings said Wednesday.

Found later in the same location, the second bird was brought in to Cummings’ raptor rehabilitation center soon after. The finder in that case heard a “pop,” so at that point, the thought was that the birds might have been shot, Cummings said.

The “dynamic duo,” as she labeled the pair of black vultures, were unable to keep their balance and kept passing out. Watertown animal control and staff at a Place Called Hope suspected the worst.

But after a battery of tests, the finding was “they were too drunk to fly,” Cummings said. The wobbly vultures had gotten into something fermented and had a party.

They were given fluids and tucked in for the night, followed by “a BIG breakfast the next day,” Cummings wrote in a Facebook post. She added that “drunk vultures are not easy patients.”

“Thankfully, they returned home today,” Cummings wrote in the post Monday, “before our center could be labeled a ‘detox’ facility.

“They went home and they immediately joined up with their colony.”

Connecticut has two types of vultures that live in its borders, black vultures and the more common turkey vultures.

Black vultures, according to the Department of Environment and Protection, are found mostly in the Naugatuck and Housatonic river valleys.

Unlike their turkey vulture cousins, black vultures rely much more on their vision, as opposed to a sense of smell, to find food, according to DEEP.

Black vultures, however, are apparently more adept at finding certain alcoholic drinks.

A Place Called Hope/Contributed photo A “drunk” vulture at A Place Called Hope in Killingworth after it was treated there and sobered up.