{"id":916683,"date":"2026-11-14T03:30:18","date_gmt":"2026-11-14T03:30:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/916683\/"},"modified":"2026-11-14T03:30:18","modified_gmt":"2026-11-14T03:30:18","slug":"vulture-with-broken-wing-falls-in-love-with-stuffed-birds-while-healing-at-sanctuary","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/916683\/","title":{"rendered":"Vulture With Broken Wing Falls In Love With Stuffed Birds While Healing At Sanctuary"},"content":{"rendered":"

When a homeowner spotted a vulture sitting on the ground on her property, she had a feeling he needed help. She contacted Pocono Wildlife Rehabilitation and Education Center<\/a>, and Janine Tancredi, director of the center, responded to the call.<\/p>\n

The rescue named the vulture Gomez and began assessing his injuries. He had a broken wing that was going to need surgery, but staffers noticed he was also acting funny. He was wobbly and seemed off, and after some testing, they discovered the poor bird was also suffering from lead poisoning.<\/p>\n

\"vulturePocono Wildlife Rehabilitation and Education Center<\/p>\n

Gomez underwent chelation therapy to treat the lead poisoning and surgery to repair his broken wing. At that time, there were no other vultures in the rescue\u2019s care. Vultures are social creatures and live in groups, and they were worried the sweet bird might get lonely. They decided to give him a stuffed vulture to keep him company \u2014 and he loved it more than they ever imagined.<\/p>\n

\u201cHe took to them immediately,\u201d Tancredi told The Dodo. \u201cLiterally ran right up and snuggled in.\u201d<\/p>\n

\"vulturePocono Wildlife Rehabilitation and Education Center<\/p>\n

Before long, Gomez had a whole fleet of stuffed vultures to keep him company, and now he\u2019s pretty much always with them.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe have some in his outside enclosure and some in his inside enclosure so he always has friends,\u201d Tancredi said.<\/p>\n

\"vulturePocono Wildlife Rehabilitation and Education Center<\/p>\n

Gomez still has a ways to go in his recovery. He is still unable to fly, and it\u2019s unclear at this time whether or not he\u2019ll be able to return to the wild. In the meantime, something incredible happened \u2014 another vulture arrived at the rescue.<\/p>\n

Gizmo also came in with a broken wing, and the rescue staff introduced the new vulture to Gomez as soon as they could.<\/p>\n

\u201cTo see Gomez’s reaction to another turkey vulture has been absolutely heartwarming,\u201d Pocono Wildlife Rehabilitation and Education Center wrote on Facebook. \u201cAnd judging by his excitement, we think he’s just as thrilled as we are!\u201d<\/p>\n

Gomez still loves his stuffed turkey vultures very much, but now he also has a real life friend to share that love with.<\/p>\n

Gomez and Gizmo still have a lot of healing to do, and Pocono Wildlife Rehabilitation and Education Center needs help. If you\u2019d like to help these vultures, you can donate to their care<\/a>.\"Frail<\/a>Frail Dog Surrounded By Vultures Has No Idea Her Life Is About To Change\u201cShe was abandoned as if she had no value. We showed that her life was worth everything!\u201d<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"When a homeowner spotted a vulture sitting on the ground on her property, she had a feeling he…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":916684,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[51],"tags":[1039,616,79,615,613,47912,201,620],"class_list":["post-916683","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-wildlife","tag-caitlin-jill-anders","tag-daily-dodo","tag-science","tag-standard","tag-the-dodo","tag-vulture","tag-wildlife","tag-wildlife-rescue"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916683","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=916683"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/916683\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/916684"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=916683"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=916683"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=916683"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}