Hi! I was wondering if, having worked with Puppy, you had any tips for taming TUVUs? We have one at the raptor rehab center where I volunteer that we would love to use as an education bird (he is a non-releasable imprint). He steps up onto a glove but then bites the glove constantly. I don't think the center has ever attempted a TUVU so we are slightly at a loss. We are not sure if this is a permanent behavior or if he isjust young (2 years at most).
Turkey vultures — indeed most vultures — take a lot of work to be handleable, and even then that work will only apply to the individuals who did it. They don’t generalize to everyone.
I’ll tell you my strategy with Puppy, though. Puppy is perched outside every day, which means his equipment needs to be put on by someone in the morning when they take him out and then taken off in the evening when he returns home. As the new trainer, this was my job, and it didn’t matter how much Puppy attacked me, I had to get it done.
I wore an eagle glove on my left arm so I’d be covered to the shoulder, and then I bandaged my right arm in layers — fingerless glove, bandages, another fingerless glove, more bandages. I left the fingers free because I wouldn’t have been able to put on his jesses and swivel without them. And then I would go in, and try to distract him with the eagle glove while my right hand attempted to thread a jess through one of his anklets. Puppy’s an old bird, though, and he knows the deal — so the glove wouldn’t hold his attention long, and he’d immediately go for my hand and bare fingers. He knew exactly how to remove bandages and also where it hurt most — he’d grab the most sensitive skin and twist. I bled a lot, haha, and it’s harder to get jesses on when they’re slippery! But I figured out fairly quickly that the less I reacted and more the more I just focused on getting the task done, the faster things went. So, usually he would actually have a hold of one of my fingers and I’d just be gritting my teeth and getting the jesses on anyway, acting like nothing was out of the ordinary.Â
Once the jesses were on, then I could have him on my glove and keep the jesses dangling under, so it was harder to him to get at my fingers while I was putting on the swivel and leash. Really, the jesses were the big hurtle, once they were in then the battle was pretty much over. And this is how it went for about three weeks! One day I walked in and reached for his anklets, and he completely ignored it. The next day he started trying to mate with me. Aaaand our relationship was cemented, haha!Â
It’s not a task for everyone, you really have to know what you're getting into and be okay with it. Some of my classmates swore they could never go through something like that to work with an animal, and others just weren’t able to keep from reacting or jumping when bitten. I’m not better than anyone, but I guess my demeanor did sort of lend itself to making the task easier — I am not very reactive, and Puppy certainly loses interest in doing something if it fails to get a reaction.Â
From that point on I could do anything with him. Hug him, kiss him, tuck him under my arm like a chicken, you name it. The vets relied on me (and my co-trainer) to examine him closely, because he would rip them up if they tried. He would attack anyone who wasn’t us. So it’s a lot of work, and even if you do it, it’s just going to mean that they are handleable by you, not everybody. They bond very strongly. I’ve heard the same story from people who work with king vultures and andean condors. They really bond with individual people. So if you want your TUVU to be an education bird (and you totally should do that, they are GREAT for that) then you should pick a few people who are going to be there for a while, so you don’t have to constantly be putting him through a new relationship bonding period.Â
So I guess my bottom line advice for those people? Have a routine, don’t give up, and be as calm and patient as you manage. You’ll probably get bitten. You’ll probably get bitten a lot. But try not to react and just be steady. He’s paying attention, I promise. And one day it will all change, and you will never regret a thing. Puppy taught me more than all the rest of my animals combined, and I think part of that was how hard I had to work to earn that relationship.
Of course, your TUVU is much younger and a different individual besides, so not all of this may apply to him! Still, I hope that at least some of it proves useful. Good luck. :)
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