Vile Vulture

"Wherever the corpse is, there the vultures will gather."

— Matthew 24:28, The Bible

When it comes to being a Brutal Bird of Prey, these guys definitely take the cake.

Vultures are seen as a bad omen and a symbol of death because they can sniff out a dead animal from a mile away. In fact, when a group of vultures is feeding on carrion, it's called a wake. Due to their eating habits, vultures are vilified by the public and unfairly blamed for killing livestock.

As anthropomorphic characters, vultures have been often portrayed as apathetic and pitiless to the lives of others, if not outright evil. They may use gallows humor to entertain themselves, often providing commentary on dire situations and making jokes at their prey's expense to show how little they value life and how they enjoy watching the performance of the kill. If they are in the story, it means a character is doomed or facing certain death. In other cases, the vulture is scheming their deaths and orchestrating these fatal situations in the first place.

Vulture motifs are typically used for people who steal from the dead or have a profession that involves tending to the dead (e.g. undertakers and grave robbers). The motif is also used with people who are trying to gain from another person's troubles (e.g. businessmen, insurance salesmen, and grave robbers) ^note  Realistically, it would be more accurate to compare them to sanitation workers because although their job is looked down upon or sneered at by others, their jobs are vitally important to their respective environments . It's rare to find this motif being given to a purely heroic character; they are either pragmatic antiheroes at best or greedy, opportunistic villains at worst when this is their motif.

In real life, vultures play an important role in their ecosystem, because they clean up carcasses that are infested with hazardous diseases. A vulture's urine is able to sanitize its food, cool the bird off on a hot day, and sanitize the vulture's feet by neutralizing the harmful pathogens found on the carcass. Their stomach acids also neutralize harmful pathogens and diseases such as rabies, cholera, botulinum, and anthrax. Their feathers are also too thick for bacteria and parasites to pass through and cause infections.

Vultures are also quite patient, as they'll steer clear of larger, stronger carnivores. They'll wait until a carcass has become "softer" through decomposition since their talons aren't strong enough to restrain or lift prey, and their beaks aren't strong enough to puncture the skin. At best, they'll start by eating the softer parts of a body, such as the eyes and the anus.

At worst, they will finish off dying animals if they are desperate enough for food and have no other option. It should be noted they are under competitive stresses other carnivores don't face (since they can't go out and make their own dinner, and often can't avoid other scavengers when they do find it) so they can be aggressive, but generally are noted by zookeepers to have calm demeanors otherwise.

In a classic example of reality being unrealistic, vultures can indeed often be seen hanging out in dead trees. The sinister image is for entirely practical reasons: they can see farther without leaves in the way. They're also big birds, and the smaller twigs having broken off also makes it easier to perch (especially since they have flat, chicken-like feet that can't grasp a branch very well). They're just as happy on a water tower... or an Evil Tower of Ominousness.

Compare and contrast Circling Vultures, in which the mere presence of vultures is treated as a sign that a character is doomed and they may not even have enough sapience to be capable of being truly vile. Overlaps with Feathered Fiend for birds being as villains. See also Creepy Crows for another type of bird often portrayed with an unnerving or malevolent bent. A subtrope of Scavengers Are Scum, since vultures are seen as bad omens for targeting the dead or dying so they can eat them or steal from them. Contrast Noble Bird of Prey, since vultures are often portrayed as the Unpleasant Animal Counterpart to other raptors.

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Examples:

Advertising

• One anti-smoking advertisement had a man lost in a desert crawl up to a pair of vultures and beg for a cigarette even though he should be asking for water. After the man smokes one cigarette he asks for another and one of the vultures has an idea. The vultures put a cigarette on the end of a fishing line and use it to lure the man into falling off of a cliff so they can eat him.
• A "No Talking or Phones" Warning by AMC Theaters depicted as an animated film parodying Disney's The Lion King (1994) and Brother Bear starring a bald eagle as the protagonist portrayed a vulture as the Big Bad.

Anime & Manga

• Choujin X: Very much averted with Tokio Kurohara, the main character, who is repeatedly symbolized as a vulture. Tokio views himself as a scavenger living off the scraps of his best friend Azuma, and as such sees himself as a vulture to Azuma's lion. However, it's noted that vultures are capable of flying higher than any other bird in the world, reflecting how Tokio has an abundance of untapped potential that he himself is overlooking.
• Doraemon: Commander Seagrid, the main villain during the first act of Doraemon: Nobita and the Winged Braves, is a humanoid vulture plotting to wipe out humanity as revenge for shooting out one of his wings.
• Kimba the White Lion: In the 1989 anime, Claw has a vulture as one of his lackeys.
• One Piece: In the criminal syndicate Baroque Works, Miss Friday the vulture is one of a pair of assassins that hunt down agents that either go rogue or failed their missions to punish them (alongside Mr. 13 the otter).

Asian Animation

• Chuck Chicken has a villainous vulture named Sinister Emperor.
• Kursat, one of King Shakir's villains, is a vulture who resorts to things such as cheating to get his way.

Comic Books

• Brute Force: One of the members of the villainous team Heavy Metal is an evil vulture named Tailgunner.
• Disney Ducks Comic Universe: In the Paperinik New Adventures series, there is a vulture supervillain named Inquinator. His M.O. mainly revolves around garbage, which alludes to vultures' diet of feeding off wasted bodies. Though he makes a Heel–Face Turn in the comic "Paperinik e il ritorno di Inquinator" ("Duck Avenger and the return of Inquinator"), he goes back to being a villain again in the comic series Ultraheroes.
• Spider-Man:
  • Adrian "The Vulture" Toomes is a villain who stylizes himself as a vulture by using a winged suit to rob banks and try to kill Spider-Man. His vulture-like appearance is aided by the fact that he's bald and has a fairly prominent, pointy nose.
  • In Edge of Spider-Verse (2023), the Vulture of Earth-423 is an actual (if oversized) vulture called Adrianna. Somehow being in a parody of Disney movies doesn't make her any better looking.
• Condorito: Averted by the titular character, an anthropomorphic Andean Condor who is Chile's most iconic cartoon character. He's consistently characterized as friendly, loyal, and always willing to help anyone. That said, he doesn't look much like a condor.

Comic Strips

• The Far Side:
  • One famous strip has some vultures gathered around an unseen corpse. One of them is wearing the guy's hat and coat and says mockingly "Hey! Look at me, everybody, I'm a cowboy! Howdy, howdy, howdy!"
  • Another strip has a parched desert traveler crawling his way towards a pool of water. This prospect disappoints one vulture hovering above him, but a second vulture prepares to drop a piano on him before he reaches it.
  • Another strip features two elderly men feeding birds at a park bench, commenting on the smaller birds eating their seed but wondering why two much larger birds nearby just stare at them.
• One newspaper cartoon by Andrzej Mleczko depicted a vulture sitting on a branch, looking down at a dying rhino: "I hope I am not bothering you, sir, I am just waiting for you to croak."
• One of the minor antagonists in Pogo is a buzzard named Sarcophagus Macabre who dresses like an undertaker and speaks in a san serif font.

Fan Works

• In Eleutherophobia: Ghost in the Shell, Margaret's bird morph is an Andean condor. It's big and powerful enough to kill the policeman who was guarding the house and nearly kill Tom in owl morph, but Tobias is able to fly rings around her.
• Prehistoric Park Reimagined: While many vulture species appear in the titular park, Rocco and Laverne, the teratornis pair, whilst not evil per se, are the straightest examples of this, portrayed as rather aggressive and pugnacious. Hannibal and Imlice the argentavis avert this trope - whilst they are fierce and menacing, ultimately, they're more Noble Birds of Prey.
• in This Bites!, The Hiruno Familiga has trained vultures working for them to help in the process of psychologically breaking their bounty targets. The vultures are fed the crewmembers of bounties not worth anything in payment. Two of them happen to be cousins of Miss Friday.

Films — Animation

• The 3 Little Pigs: The Movie: Two vultures eagerly wait outside the Inn of the Gentle Wolf, hoping that the arriving patrons will let them have some bones to gnaw on after the Dinner Theatre is over.
• In Barbie of Swan Lake, the Evil Sorcerer Rothbart and his daughter Odile shapeshift into vultures (in a deviation from the original ballet, where Rothbart was an Ominous Owl and Odile was a black swan).
• In Fantasia, a sinister-looking vulture appears at the beginning of the Night on Bald Mountain sequence, where it appears perched on a gallow and has probably sustained itself on a condemned criminal's corpse.
• Ice Age: The Meltdown: The Lone Gunslinger is a vulture that confirms Manny's claim that the ice caps are melting and everyone is doomed if they don't make it to the boat. He's eager to point out that those who die will be food for him and the other vultures.
  Lone Gunslinger: There is some good news, though: the more of you that die, the better I eat.
  Crowd: [gasp]
  Lone Gunslinger: I didn't say it was good news for you!
• The Jungle Book: Subverted. Buzzie, Flaps, Ziggy, and Dizzy initially make fun of Mowgli, but when they see that he's lonesome and in need of a sympathetic ear, they decide to cheer him up. They also help him and Baloo take on Shere Khan.
• Robin Hood (1973): Trigger and Nutsy, the Sheriff of Nottingham's vulture henchmen, assist him in making life difficult for the beloved outlaw. Nutsy is a subversion, as he's too good-natured and, frankly, too dense to do anything terribly villainous, but Trigger plays it straight. However, unlike the Sheriff himself, the vultures are only Punch-Clock Villains who are following orders.
• In Smurfs: The Lost Village, Gargamel has a pet vulture named Monty. While bumbling and goofy, he can still occasionally be dangerous.
• Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs: Invoked with several vultures (two of which even provide the page image) that are shown following around the Big Bad Queen Grimhilde while she's in her ugly old crone disguise and trying to give Snow White the poisoned apple and sticking around when she's later attempting to flee from and kill the seven dwarves, making it look as if they're her pets. Subverted in the end, however, when it turns out they're just local wildlife unaffiliated with Grimhilde who prove perfectly happy to descend down in circles to feast on her corpse once she herself has ended up killed over the course of her encounter with the dwarves.
• The Thief and the Cobbler: The Evil Chancellor, Zigzag, has a pet vulture named Phido. Phido apparently eats living meat, and does attempt to eat the protagonist, Tack, at one point, but Phido is so frequently abused by his master and other characters that you can't help but feel a little sympathy for him. Zigzag himself has a vulture motif, although his design is more Ambiguously Human.
• Toy Story: In the special Toy Story That Time Forgot, the Battlesaurs toy line has a Pteranodon as The Cleric, who serves as an Evil Chancellor. While not technically a vulture, his long beak and hunched stance definitely evoke the appearance of one.
• War of the Birds (Fuglekrigen i Kanøfleskoven): Fagin, a cruel and sinister vulture, is the film's main antagonist. He's responsible for killing the parents & siblings of Oliver, Olivia's parents, the mice's mother, and later Betty, Oliver & Olivia's caretaker (but not without losing an eye). He is feared by the birds of the forest and of the city and considers himself king of the birds. Throughout the film, Oliver & Oliva attempt to kill the vulture, but their plans often fail due to Fagin's spy the Dove warning him about them. He is eventually killed in the final battle, after the dove stands up to him, after which both of them fall into a fire, started by Oliver, Olivia & the mice.

Films — Live-Action

• Bedknobs and Broomsticks: During the soccer match in the Isle of Naboombu, vultures serve as medics, eager to carry off Prof. Brown (as the referee) whenever he gets trampled, only to walk away dejected when Brown turns to be still very much alive.
• Invoked on Casablanca when a pickpocket warns his marks that there are "vultures, vultures everywhere!", as he takes their valuables from underneath their noses.
• The Dark Crystal: The Skeksis resemble vultures and are an Always Chaotic Evil race who committed genocide on the gelflings in an attempt to prevent The Chosen One from undoing their reign.
• The Giant Claw: La Carcagne is a gigantic extraterrestrial bird monster that resembles a grotesque vulture as big as a battleship. It's a man-eating, city-destroying kaiju... although definitely less terrifying than the film tries to make it.
• As shown in Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, a vulture becomes the pet and scout of the film's primary antagonist, Van Pelt.
• Played straight in the 2016 remake of The Jungle Book, where Buzzie, Flaps, Ziggy, and Dizzy instead shadow Shere Khan so he can lead them to food, and they are often used to mark his presence.

Literature

• Bird Life In Wington: Subverted. While Mr. Buzzard will dine on the corpses of his neighbors should one be available, he's shown to be a calm, solemn, honest and patient fellow. For example, in the story where he's introduced, he's talking to Mr. Hawk. The subject of breakfast comes up, and Mr. Buzzard admits he hasn't had his yet, saying "It's best to wait on the Lord; He always provides." Mr. Hawk scoffs at this and tries to kill Bill Robin (who is sitting on a nearby fencepost) and have him for breakfast—but Bill Robin is startled by Mr. Hawk's shadow and flies off. As a result Mr. Hawk ends up fatally impaling himself on that same post—whereupon Mr. Buzzard claims him for breakfast, saying "It's best to wait on the Lord; He always provides."
• The Calf of the November Cloud: Vultures are associated with death and decay, the presence of a flock circling being regarded as a sure sign that an animal has been killed off.
• The Chronicles of Prydain: The Gwythaints are a subversion. In the books (unlike in the movie, where they are depicted as dragons), they are huge black vulture-like birds that serve as messengers and spies for the arch-villain Arawn. However, they are not inherently evil and have the potential for good— Taran befriends one, which goes on to save him in a Heroic Sacrifice in the last book.
• Ricky Ricotta's Mighty Robot: Ricky Ricottas Mighty Robot vs. the Voodoo Vultures from Venus has the titular heroes fight Victor von Vulture and his army of alien vultures. The vultures perform a Mass Hypnosis on Squeakyville to force the residents to give them all their food.
• In the Sweet Pickles series, Vulture tries to subvert the trope by dressing well, (The books were first written in the late 70's, so he looks a bit like a Disco Dan) keeping well groomed and only eating what he gets from Elephant's grocery store, and even then in moderation. Ironically, his vanity can become an unattractive trait at times.
• The Sword of Saint Ferdinand: Vultures are consistently treated as ruthless scavengers and heralds of death who are always looking for corpses of unlucky people to feed on.

Live-Action TV

• Brooklyn Nine-Nine: Invoked with Capt. Keith "The Vulture" Pembroke, who got his title by taking over near-complete cases so he can finish them off and take sole credit for them. For this reason, nobody likes him and they do everything they can to finish the case before he takes over.
• Grimm: Geiers are vulture-like Wesen (humanoid human-animal hybrids) who are known for their practices of making Wesen medicines out of human organs, oftentimes through vivisection. They're also noted for their sadistic behavior.
• Kitchen Nightmares: Invoked, a chef was nicknamed "Buzzard" because he had a habit of stealing food from the restaurant and the company was so mismanaged that it continued until he was fired during the episode.
• Last Week Tonight with John Oliver: Discussed. On the topic of Puerto Rico, John talks about how hedge funds prey on vulnerable people during debt ridden economies. This problem is so famous in Puerto Rico that they are nicknamed Vulture Funds.
  "If you are alone in the desert and see vultures perched above you, your first thought is never, 'Oh thank God, the vultures are coming to help.'"
• The Sarah Jane Adventures: The Shansheeth are aliens that resemble vultures and they make their first appearance in Death of the Doctor. Their ultimate plan was to steal the TARDIS in order to avert death on a historical scale, regardless of effect to the timeline. Since they couldn't get the key to it from the 11th Doctor, they lied about his death so they could form a copy of the key by using a memory weave on his companions at his funeral.

Music

• The original version of "Magpie to the Morning" by Neko Case has a verse about a vulture who smells the protagonist's depression "rotting on the train tracks", and laughs because "you thought you could outrun sorrow". This stands in contrast to the magpie and mockingbird, who, while not perfect, are shown to care about the protagonist and try to comfort them. Notably, the second version of this song omits the vulture line and replaces it with a more positive one.

Mythology and Religion

• Usually averted with vultures and condors which tend to be revered in many non-European cultures (i.e., the Egyptian maternal vulture goddess Nekhbet, the condor being the symbol of Inti, et cetera).
• The Mono people of California see the condor as essentially a serial killer that drinks human blood by decapitation.
• Tupi-Guarani Mythology: The "Vulture King" (Rei Urubu in Brazilian sources; roughly translates to this in English) is an ambivalent figure. Sometimes, he is an antagonist to the hero twins. Other times he is a Noble Demon who honors his promises.
• Averted in Egyptian Mythology, where vultures are treated pretty positively as good parents and symbols of both maternity and divine protection, most notably with the goddess Isis.
• Ramayana: Averted. Demi-gods Jatayu and Sampati take on the form of vultures and are very much Noble Birds of Prey, with Jatayu in particular even sacrificing himself to save Sita from her kidnapper Ravana. Hell, he even provides the page quote for the latter trope.

Radio

• Deconstructed in a sketch on John Finnemore's Souvenir Programme, in which a vulture appears on the Today programme to defend their image.
  John Humphries: Do you deny, then, that you and your kind feast on dead bodies?
  Vulture: If you mean by that inflammatory language "Are the animals we consume dead?" then yes. Would you prefer it if they were alive?
  

Tabletop Games

• BattleTech: The Clan Mad Dog omnimech was given the Reporting Name of Vulture by the Federated Commonwealth and Hagetaka (Japanese for vulture) by the Draconis Combine both for its bird-like appearance and for the fact that as a mech that's equipped primarily for long-range fire support it tends to sit on high points overlooking battlefields like a vulture waiting for prey.
• Dungeons & Dragons:
  • Vrocks are a low-ranking type of demon that resemble humanoid vultures. Even among demons, they're known for their love of carnage, bloodshed, and their overall greed. Vrocks are also infamously treacherous, just barely loyal to their own kind, and are easily convinced to betray their comrades and superiors with little cajoling.
  • Module B8 Journey to the Rock: When the PCs reach the Cave of Sanctuary they will see sinister vultures circling lazily overhead: they're about to snack on the body of a recently killed gnome.
  • In 5th edition's Monster Manual, Giant Vultures are among the few beasts intelligent enough for an alignment, and are explicitly listed as Neutral Evil, with a sadistic bent and willing to finish off wounded creatures to feed on them.
  • Nagpas are Expies of the Skeksis from The Dark Crystal, resembling humanoid vultures and noted as being powerful wizards of a malevolent bent. Their backstory varies between editions, but most agree that they were cursed with their present forms by a powerful force for betraying them.
• Gamma World: Carrins are a race of mutated vultures, and are known for being Machiavellian schemers.
• Warhammer Fantasy: The Tomb Kings use mummified giant vultures known as Carrion as flying troops in their armies, noted for being cowardly in life and only going after weakened or isolated prey. While terrifying to their enemies, Nehekharan culture actually held vultures in high esteem, seeing them as psychopomps carrying off the souls of warriors to fight demons in the sky.
• Warhammer: Age of Sigmar: Orruks of the Kruleboyz warclan are known to ride massive Corpse-Rippa Vulchas as mounts; if the name wasn't a giveaway, Kruleboyz are not nice people (they're arguably the only Orruk clan that's genuinely evil instead of just chaotic and destructive) and they train their mounts to be as vicious and sadistic as they are.

Theme Parks

• America Sings: A pair of vultures, the Boothill Boys, worked as undertakers. They sang "The End of Billy the Kid" during the Wild West act of the show.
• Splash Mountain: At the top of the final lift hill, just before the large drop, a pair of vultures makes snide comments about your fate. (The vulture animatronics were originally recycled from The Boothill Boys on America Sings.)
  Vulture #1: If you've finally found your laughing place...
  Vulture #2: How come you aren't laughing?

Toys

• BIONICLE: Vultraz, a minor villain in the 2008 storyline, is themed after a vulture.
• Legends of Chima: Vultures are members of the Ice Hunters, the arc villains of Series 3.
• The Transformers:
  • Doubledealer is a triple-changer who works for both the Autobots and Decepticons, utilizing his two alternate modes to trick them so they don't realize it. To the Autobots he appears as a self-propelled missile artillery vehicle, but to the Decepticons he appears as a mechanical bird of prey. Officially it's supposed to be a falcon, but even official publications point out that he looks far more like a vulture, in keeping with his backstabbing, mercenary nature.
  • A far more prominent Transformer who turned into an actual vulture is Laserbeak, one of Soundwave's cassette minions and the Decepticons' most trusted spy. Incidentally, he seems to suffer from the opposite sort of identity crisis as Doubledealer: his robot mode is officially called a condor, which is a type of vulture, but in most versions he looks more like an eagle or a falcon.

Video Games

• Arena.Xlsm: Vultures are one of the many animal enemies available.
• Bounty of One: Zig-Zagged by Roger, a vulture shopkeeper who is the only benevolent NPC in the game, aids the wrongfully-outlawed player characters, and is an unlockable player character. At the same time, however, he is in charge of a Black Market.
• Donkey Kong Country: Necky and Mini-Necky are vultures that serve as an Airborne Mook against the Kongs. Master Necky and Master Necky Snr are bosses in the first game while Krow is a boss twice in Donkey Kong Country 2: Diddy's Kong Quest.
• Eastern Exorcist has vulture-demons, resembling gigantic vultures, who feeds on humans and attacks you in several areas.
• Fear & Hunger: Termina: The Valkyrie is one of the Moonscorched monstrosities that may roam Prehevil in the endgame, and is a hostile Giant Flyer with vulture-esque talons and wings. And to make matters worse? Once upon a time, she was Karin Sauer.
• The titular Killer from the Games Of The Killer series. He has a vulture-shaped head complete with a permanent curved smile and always wears a black cloak. His appearances in each game usually leads to the mood shifting to something much darker until the protagonist manages to escape.
• Hyper Light Drifter: There is an entire cult of birds resembling vultures or corvids.
• The Legend of Zelda has recurring enemies called Kargorocs that resemble monstrous, oversized vultures.
• Vulturon the Condoroid from Mega Man ZX Advent is a robotic anthropomorphic necromancer rock star vulture working for the villains by powering up Model W with negative emotions from reanimated robot corpses.
• Mickey Mouse games:
  • In Land of Illusion, vultures serve as enemies in Craggy Cliff and the Desert.
  • In Mickey Mouse 3: Dream Balloon, Ziggy the Vulture serves as the boss of the second level. Ziggy attacks Mickey by swooping down at him and tossing feathers. In the game's North American Dolled-Up Installment, Kid Klown In Night Mayor World, the boss was changed to a giant owl.
• Pokémon Black and White: Vullaby and Mandibuzz are dark-type pokemon and their designs are based on vultures, specifically the turkey vulture.
  It makes a nest out of the bones it finds. It grabs weakened prey in its talons and hauls it to its nest of bones.
• In Quest for the Shaven Yak: Starring Ren Hoëk & Stimpy, vultures serve as enemies in The Stinking Dry Desert and The Perilous Mt. Hoek. They attack Ren or Stimpy by laying eggs.
• RuneScape:
  • The Dragonkin originally were designed to look like vultures since they were based on the Skeksis, but they were later redesigned into DraconicHumanoids.
  • Famine of the Horsemen of the Apocalypse is the only Aviansie seen so far who looks like a vulture, and also happens to be the only Aviansie known to be evil, being a mass murderer who poisons food supplies and spreads blights.
• Shipwrecked 64: In cut content, Bucky was originally going to have nightmares where he'd have to escape from a skull-headed, Sinister Scythe-wielding vulture representing his fear of death. Though that never made it into the game, the vulture's files are still in the data.
• Sly 2: Band of Thieves: the Contessa's Flashlight Guards are vultures.
• Sphinx and the Cursed Mummy: The mayor of Abydos has two advisors who are a pair of very shifty-looking humanoid vultures that eventually reveal themselves as responsible for the city's recent woes, having been secretly serving the evil god Set.
• Super Mario 64: Klepto the Condor appears as an enemy in the desert level Shifting Sand Land. It holds one of the Power Stars, flying around between the four pillars, so Mario must reclaim it from its talons. Mario can attack the bird, knocking it out for a short period of time, after which it tries to steal the plumber's hat. In later stages, Klepto can be found flying near the oasis and still attempts to steal Mario's cap.
• Terraria: Vultures appear as enemies in the Desert biome. When the player comes nearby, they immediately fly up and start hovering above him before swooping down for attack, and continue pursuing the player to death.

Web Animation

• Let Me Explain Studios: Discussed in "Blood on my Windshield", Texans are taught to avoid buzzards because they have difficulty taking off. While Rebecca and her mom were out, the pair nearly drove into a buzzard but the bird was able to get out of the way and survive. Unfortunately, the carrion from the buzzard's beak slipped out and splattered over the windshield and they had to get the car washed before they went any further.

Webcomics

• Sandra and Woo: Butterfly the raccoon is doing a death-defying climb, only to look up and see that the eagle who catches her if she falls has been captured and tied up by a vulture.
  Butterfly: And vultures wonder why they have such a bad reputation…

Western Animation

• Birdz:
  • One episode has a creepy-looking vulture whom Eddie suspects is an escaped criminal from a novel he read. Subverted in that he turns out to be a decent guy.
  • In a different episode, Eddie gets lost during his family's migration flight and encounters a Cajun vulture who plots to cook and eat him.
• Classic Disney Shorts: In the Donald Duck short "The Flying Jalopy" the Big Bad of the short is Ben Buzzard, the owner of an Honest John's Dealership who sells Donald the titular Alleged Plane in the hopes that Donald will crash and get killed and Ben will cash in the life insurance he swindled Donald into signing among the purchase paperwork and escalating to actively flying to the plane and trying to sabotage it when Donald performs a Midair Repair.
• Count Duckula: Igor is a vulture who has a love for anything dark and sinister, and is constantly trying to get his master to do evil again with no success.
• Craig of the Creek: In "Vulture's Nest", Craig is spooked by a vulture nesting in an abandoned barn. That makes him apprehensive when a local band plays in the barn and he's afraid to attend.
• The Cuphead Show!: One of the Devil's finest demons (by elimination) resembles a vulture and is on the hunt for Cuphead and Mugman.
• Darkwing Duck: Phineas Sharp, the Villain of the Week in "In Like Blunt", is a supervillain vulture seeking out and murdering S.H.U.S.H. agents and plotting to sell a list of their names to fellow villains.
• DuckTales (2017): The Board of Directors are anthropomorphic vultures who help Scrooge with his finances and running his company. In the show, the vultures act extremely thrifty and disapproving of Scrooge's adventurous lifestyle. Their leader, Bradford Buzzard, is later revealed as the leader and funder of the villainous F.O.W.L. organization, with the other vultures being clones of himself.
• Garbage Pail Kids Cartoon: The second episode's movie parody segment, Pie Fight at the Okee Dokee Corral, had a scene where the hero Clint Hardwood encountered a vulture who attempted to eat him.
• Gravity Falls: In "The Love God", Robbie is lying in an open grave and mopes loudly about how much he misses Wendy. A vulture shows up, and Robbie tells it to just go ahead and eat him already. Once it does, however, he quickly backtracks.
  Robbie: AAAH! I was just being dramatic! Quit it! Ow, my face! VULTURE!!
• The Lion Guard: A flock of white-backed vultures led by Mzingo act as recurring villains - often working alongside Janja and his hyena clan. However, this eventually becomes an aversion when they perform a Heel–Face Turn in the Season 3 premiere.
• Looney Tunes: Beaky Buzzard is typically an inversion of this trope, as he mostly fails at being vile, no matter how hard he tries. The one time where he does is in his last appearance in the classic shorts, "The Lion's Busy", where he hangs around an old lion waiting for him to die of old age. The lion tries to get away from Beaky, but he always appears wherever he goes, even to the moon.
• Phineas and Ferb: In "Tri-Stone Area", Can-tok briefly gets carried off by a giant prehistoric vulture with sharp teeth.
• A deleted scene from an episode of Ren & Stimpy shows Ren being eaten alive by a vulture. When Ren informs him that he and Stimpy are going to live after all, the vulture proceeds to spit his innards back out.
• The Simpsons:
  • In "Viva Ned Flanders," Homer and Ned end up walking home through the Nevada desert after their misadventures lead to them getting kicked out of Vegas. A pair of vultures spot them and, after exchanging a quick glance, swoop in for the kill.
  • Mr. Burns is often associated with birds, in particular, vultures.
    • His character design, with his thin frame, skinny neck, and beak-like nose, makes him look very bird-like.
    • His home includes a menagerie◊ filled with birds, (including vultures that look remarkably like himself◊,) and in 'Fraudcast News', his alter ego in his Itchy & Scratchy propaganda cartoon is a vulture.
    • In a more subtle example, nearly all of the establishing shots of the nuclear power plant are accompanied by the sound of a crow's caw. According to 'Burns, Baby, Burns,' he apparently has several pet peacocks that wander around the grounds of Burns Manor.
    • In 'The Fool Monty,' Mr. Burns is rendered mentally incompetent after suffering from a head injury. While the mayor holds a meeting to discuss what to do with him, Burns is restrained, appropriately enough, in an over-sized bird cage◊.
    • In "Havana Wild Weekend", Mr. Burns, Lindsey Naegle, The Rich Texan, and Howard K. Duff VIII are the millionaires on "Vulture's Nest" (a spoof of Dragon's Den) who can provide funding and help with their business ideas and products to entrepreneurs. The Vultures can offer to take a percentage of the profits in return for investing money into the idea.
• Taz-Mania: In the episode "Mall Wrecked", a pair of vultures harass Taz, Jean, and Molly who are stranded at the closed mall when their car broke down. Unusually, the vultures refer to themselves as predators as opposed to scavengers. Eventually, the vultures get stripped of their feathers by an enraged Taz for attempting to eat a sleeping Molly.
• Tex Avery MGM Cartoons: "What's Buzzin', Buzzard?" is about two vultures who are so desperate for food they try to eat each other.
• Thunder Cats 2011: Heavily zigzagged with the humanoid vulture Vultaire. On the one hand, much like all the other humanoid birds of the series, he is perfectly happy to treat guests to their city of Avista with generous hospitality. But on the other hand, he also shares their considerable arrogance and belief in their own superiority over the other comparatively more primitive races. Furthermore, he also blatantly breaks his end of a bargain with the heroes despite their winning fairly against him in a challenge, deliberately sabotages their efforts at retrieving an important MacGuffin immediately after telling them (admittedly through interrogation) where and how to find it, and proves to be a Dirty Coward when, despite his general hatred of the other races and even of Mumm-Ra himself, he willingly joins forces with Mumm-Ra over the course of the latter's later attack on Avista to save his own skin and have the chance at gaining further power in his life.
• Total Drama: Invoked in All-Stars as the name of the villains team, whose inaugural members consist of Heather, Duncan, Alejandro, Scott, Jo, Lightning, and Gwen.
• Wild West C.O.W.-Boys of Moo Mesa: Boothill Buzzard is one of The Masked Bull/Sheriff Terrorbull's two minions. He's not very strong but definitely vile.
• Woody Woodpecker: A recurring villain in the shorts is Buzz Buzzard, who Depending on the Writer can go anywhere from being just a plain jerkass giving Woody grief up to a criminal who has no problem trying to kill him.

Real Life

• Invoked by the term "Vulture Fund", which is a hedge fund, private equity fund, or distressed debt fund, that invests in debt considered to be very weak or in default, known as distressed securities.
• Invoked by the term "Vulture capitalist", which is an investor who primarily targets distressed companies for acquisition, try to pump its short-term profitability, then sell it off. This often involves cutting cost by things like firing workers or lowering quality. As such, vulture capitalists often have a bad reputation.
  • Another approach is to acquire a company, even a profitable and viable company, but once taking ownership, the investment group transfers the debt used to buy the company to the company itself. The target company then conveniently declares bankruptcy, the debt used to buy it is mostly written off, and the investors can sell off the company's remining assets for profit. Naturally, the target company's employees, customers, and suppliers get almost nothing out of this.
• Invoked by the idiom "Culture Vulture", which is a person who adopts something from a different community and makes it their own. It is also used to describe someone who has an avid interest in the arts. Not to be confused with "Vulture Culture", which is an interest in bones and dead animals.
• In food service, "Vulture Bait" is food that is unfit for sale to a customer but is still this side of edible. Got a tiny bit overdone, broke apart in the oven, a minute or two past what can legally be called "fresh", too much ketchup to suit the customer, that kind of thing. The workers swing by it and break off quick bites before getting back to work.

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