Here in El Salvador, Turkey vultures (
Cathartes aura) are generally referred to as "ave de rapiña"; which loosely translates to "raptor ". What is really neat is that Old World vultures belong to the taxonomic order Falconiformes (where raptors/ birds of prey are also grouped). However, New World vultures are not part of the Falconiformes & are evolutionarily unrelated to raptors. It appears then that the term "ave de rapiña" is a remnant from Old World Spanish (Spain!) and a misnomer for a New World bird! Here's a great paper by
Gibb et al. 2007.
