The griffon vulture is not only ungainly, smelly, and endangered: it is also often denied its biblical fame by being mixed up with the eagle.
But for a network of Israeli conservationists, the bird still has pride of place in the land whose ancient prophets saw in its soaring flight a metaphor for religious exaltation.
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Yigal Miller, manager of programs for endangered raptors at the Nature and Parks Authority, holds a griffon vulture at a makeshift data-collecting station near Sde Boker, October 2019
(Photo: Reuters)
Hit by accidental poisoning and urbanization, Israel's griffon vulture population has fallen to around 180 in the wild, says Yigal Miller, manager of programs for endangered raptors at the Israel Nature and Parks Authority.
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A conservationist draws blood from a griffon vulture after it was temporarily captured as part of a national project to protect and increase the population of the protected bird near Sde Boker in southern Israel, October 2019
(Photo: Reuters)
So as part of the "Under Our Wing" project run by his organization and the Society for the Protection of Nature in Israel, the next generation is being reared in captivity before being let loose in the desert with tracking tags.
"We raise the vulture chicks... and after several years we release them to nature," Miller said.
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A griffon vulture lands in an area used as a feeding station, where carrion is left by conservationists near Sde Boker in southern Israel, May 2020
(Photo: Reuters)
Named "nesher" in Hebrew, the bird has often been mislabeled in scriptures, notably in the King James Version of the English Bible, which in Exodus describes God as bearing the Israelites on eagles', rather than vultures', wings.
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Griffon vultures stand inside a nesting box at the Hai-Bar Nature Reserve in the Carmel mountains in northern Israel, May 2020
(Photo: Reuters)
According to Israel's Biblical Museum of Natural History, many people still feel as uncomfortable as those 17th-century translators did in identifying as a vulture a bird described in noble terms by scripture.
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Yigal Miller, manager of programs for endangered raptors at Israel's Nature and Parks Authority, holds a newly hatched griffon vulture chick at the Biblical Zoo in Jerusalem, May 2020
(Photo: Reuters)
"The vulture is (nowadays) commonly regarded as a loathsome creature," its website explains.
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A conservationist performs a test on a griffon vulture at a makeshift data-collecting station near Sde Boker in southern Israel, October 2019
(Photo: Reuters)
"But in the Middle East, it is the griffon vulture that is the king of birds."