Vultures Take Wing for Livingston High Researcher

Caroline Cole, a senior in the Science Research program at Livingston High School, has received a major honor for her environmental research on vultures. 

Cole won second place award in the 2013 Thacher Environmental Contest, hosted by the Institute for Global Environmental Strategies. The awards are given to students demonstrating the best use of satellites and other geospatial technologies or data to study Earth.  

The high school student was honored for her research paper titled "Cape Vulture Tracking Project.”

In this project, Cole used satellite location data for a South African Cape Vulture, a species declining in population. The vulture was fitted with a transmitter to model the spatial ecology of the bird, which showed how dependent it is on animal carcasses provided by humans at feeding sites known as vulture restaurants. 

Dr. Nuni Walsh was the research mentor for this project will influence conservation efforts attempting to maintain the Cape Vulture population. The paper will be published in the journal "Vulture News.”