Pablo Ignacio Plaza and Sergio Agustín Lambertucci from the National University of Comahue and the Argentine Research Council in Argentina quantified the contribution of vultures to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by developing two contrasting scenarios. The first assumes that all the dead animals that the vultures can consume are disposed of, whereas in the second scenario, the dead animals are left to decompose in the environment without scavengers. The results show that the current vulture population can reduce emissions by up to 60.7 teragrams CO2 equivalent per year. A decline in vulture populations decreases their mitigation capacity by 30%. The study highlights that vultures are essential to keep our climate cool.
Source: Ecology - nature.com
