A one-eyed Eurasian Griffon Gyps fulvus

Alvaro Camiña, David Martín, Javier Pascual & Eugenio Montelío

A one-eyed Eurasian Griffon was observed in south-eastern La Rioja province,

northern Spain (41º56´N, 1º54´ W) on 3 May 2004, when searching for new
vulture nests.
A Eurasian Griffon was observed to land at the top of a cliff. It faced other
vultures that were flying above the cliff. One of us (AC) approached the bird
from its right side, to within 2 m, a distance at which the vulture did not appear
to be frightened by presence of a human. It was evident that the bird had
recently eaten, as its crop was full and its head was dirty. It was also noticed
that the bird was missing its right eye, possibly the result of an old injury as no
recent wounds or blood were present.
The vulture then turned its head, observed AC, was immediately
frightened and took off. After some flapping flight the bird soared above our
heads for a few minutes. Judging from its plumage, it was an adult bird. It did
not appear to experience any problems with flying. After a while, all the vultures
flew away.
It is well known that Old World Vultures rely on their acute sense of sight
to locate carcasses (Houston 1974). They also forage in groups, watching each
other, thus increasing the probability of finding food.
We found no references about one -eyed vultures (Mundy et al. 1992,
Donázar 1993), with only Whitelaw (1980) providing such information for other
raptors. All of these raptors rely on their eyesight to catch live prey, but
apparently they were not handicapped by their impaired vision. For the one-
eyed vulture, the fact that it feeds on dead animals (i.e. which do not move) and
uses its social behaviour to assist with the location of food, would mean that it
could probably li ve a normal life.

References
Donázar, J.A. 1993. Los Buitres Ibéricos, Biología y conservación. J.M. Reyero
(Ed). Madrid. 236 pp.
Houston, D.C. 1974. Food searching behaviour in griffon vultures. E. Afr. Wildl.
J. 12: 63-77.
Mundy, P.J., Butchart, D., Ledger, J. & Piper, S. 1992. The Vultures of Africa.
Academic Press, London.
Whitelaw, D. 1980. One-eyed raptors. Safring News 9: 41-42.

Key words: One-eyed vulture, handicap, vision.

Eurasian Griffon Gyps fulvus.

Senior Author’s address: Alvaro Camiña, Apartado de Correos 339, 28220

Majadahonda, Madrid, Spain.
E-mail: acamia@vodafone.es