UW Biodiversity Institute to Host Vulture Watch Wyoming Training March 24

The city of Kearney in Nebraska is famous for being an annual migratory stop for approximately 500,000 sandhill cranes from mid-February to early April. On a smaller scale, building roofs and treetops on the University of Wyoming campus have served as springtime and summer roosts for another fowl-feathered friend -- the turkey vulture.

Vulture Watch Wyoming, a program started by the UW Museum of Vertebrates and UW Biodiversity Institute in 2024, enters its third year this spring.

UW's Biodiversity Institute again invites community members from across the state to share their observations of these fascinating and often misunderstood birds through the program. In-person training sessions are scheduled with the Cheyenne High Plains Audubon Society Tuesday, March 17, at 6 p.m. in the first-floor meeting room of Wyoming Game and Fish Department headquarters, located at 5400 Bishop Blvd. in Cheyenne; and Tuesday, March 24, at 5:30 p.m. in the Berry Biodiversity Conservation Center auditorium on UW's campus.

"There are no protocol updates, so volunteers who have taken the training before do not need to take it again before participating," says Mason Lee, senior project coordinator for the Biodiversity Institute. "Volunteers located outside of Wyoming can join the training via Zoom, and we also will be recording the training for anybody unable to attend live."

For those who want to attend, go to the Zoom registration link here.

Volunteers will once again use a mobile survey app with specific questions, including where turkey vultures select their roosts. Volunteers also will help identify which species of trees the birds use; what types of behavior they perform at their roosts; and record information on locale, time and weather condition.

In early to mid-April, turkey vultures arrive in Laramie after migrating from wintering grounds in Central America and South America. The birds may use a communal roost -- for example, they occupy a series of trees on the southwest corner of UW's campus -- which they use until they migrate back to their winter grounds in September and October. Communal roosts are important gathering places for the birds, providing them a safe place to sleep; allowing them to take care of their daily tasks, such as stretching and cleaning; and possibly sharing information about the location of resources.

"We had fantastic work by Vulture Watch Wyoming members to find and observe roosts across Wyoming in 2025," says Elizabeth Wommack, the curator and collections manager of vertebrates for the UW Museum of Vertebrates.

Participants found 11 urban and 11 rural roosts, including new urban roosts in Green River, Evanston, Meeteetse and Torrington, Wommack says. New rural roosts were found in Carbon, Laramie, Natrona and Sheridan counties, she adds.

"And many roosts had repeat observations, allowing us to start to see when turkey vultures use roosts across our state," Wommack says. "Currently, it looks like the highest use of roosts is in September."

During 2025, 90 community scientists uploaded 764 turkey vulture observations between April and November, according to a 2025 community report about Vulture Watch Wyoming. During this period, program members collected data on roosts, flight patterns and kettles, juveniles and potential nests, and several interesting behaviors. A kettle is when a group of vultures spirals upward to gain altitude and catches thermal updrifts.

"That's quite a large growth in comparison to the first year, with 41 observers and 532 observations," Lee says of statistics in the 2024 community report about Vulture Watch Wyoming.

Roosts, such as in trees near Old Main and on the building's roof, provide important information about how turkey vultures use habitats and congregate in Wyoming, according to the report. In 2025, the trees most used for roosts were cottonwoods, then mixed species stands that included species such as spruce, cottonwoods and oak. Russian olives and white poplar are other tree species used for roosts.

"A turkey vulture roost has been present each year outside of Old Main on the University of Wyoming campus for many years," Wommack says. "As part of Vulture Watch Wyoming, we wanted to know how this roost grows and expands each season while in use."

The Old Main roost did increase in both numbers of birds who used it and in the trees that they occupied in 2025 compared to 2024. Vulture Watch Wyoming counted 297 birds at the Old Main campus roost on both Aug. 12 and Sept. 9 last year, Wommack says. In 2024, the group's highest counts were 201 birds on July 30 of that year. Birds also were seen occupying more spruce trees along Ivinson Avenue in 2025, extending the roost to the southeast.

Turkey vultures are considered scavengers. The main part of turkey vultures' diets is dead animals that they clean up across the landscape. These birds have a keen sense of smell and can track carcasses by sight and smell. They also have an amazing gut and digestive system, which has been proven to remove from the environment diseases, such as anthrax and botulism, that can be found in carrion.

While turkey vultures play a vital role in the ecosystem of Wyoming, understanding of a good deal of their basic biology and behavior in the state is scarce. Because they are a wide-ranging species that may travel hundreds of miles per day, collecting data on them throughout the state becomes a huge task, Wommack says.

The 2025 community report for Vulture Watch Wyoming is expected to be available this month before the training sessions, Wommack says.

For more information about Vulture Watch Wyoming, go to https://www.wyomingbiodiversity.org/index.php/community-science/vulture-watch-wyoming or email [email protected].

About the University of Wyoming Biodiversity Institute

The UW Biodiversity Institute fosters conservation of biodiversity through scientific discovery, creative dissemination, education and public engagement. In this setting, scientists, citizens, students and educators come together to share a wealth of perspectives on the study and appreciation of biodiversity -- from microbes to poetry and ecosystems to economics. For more information, go to https://www.wyomingbiodiversity.org.

About the University of Wyoming Museum of Vertebrates

The UW Museum of Vertebrates is a rapidly expanding repository of historic and modern bird, mammal, amphibian, reptile and fish specimens. The museum's mission is to document and understand regional and global biodiversity through acquisition and investigation of collections to advance academic knowledge and public appreciation of the natural world. For more information, go to https://www.uwymv.wyomingbiodiversity.org/index.php.