Livestock exemption removes federal oversight of black vulture killings
S. 1823 — Black Vulture Relief Act of 2025 · Filed by Markwayne Mullin (R-OK) · 16 cosponsors · Introduced May 20, 2025 · Referred to committee
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What it does
This bill allows livestock producers and their employees to kill black vultures that are attacking or threatening to attack their animals, without needing a federal permit. Producers must report any vultures they kill to the Fish and Wildlife Service using a simple form, but cannot use poison. The bill carves out an exception to the federal Migratory Bird Treaty Act, which normally protects all migratory birds.
Why we flagged it
The bill's operative mechanism is a narrow carve-out from federal migratory bird protection, granting livestock producers a specific exemption to take a named species. It is not a broad deregulation or a general wildlife management reform—it is a targeted authorization for one species in one context (livestock predation).
What the text implies
- No population-level cap or monitoring threshold: the bill permits unlimited take of black vultures so long as individual producers report annually, with no aggregate limit or trigger for Fish and Wildlife Service intervention if populations decline.
- No requirement to attempt non-lethal deterrents first: producers may kill vultures immediately upon reasonable belief of threat, without documented evidence of prior damage or proof that fencing, guardian animals, or other methods were tried.
The full analysis lists 4 implications of this text.
Who stands to gain
livestock producers (reduced predation losses); agricultural operations (cost avoidance from vulture-related livestock mortality)