A 52-year-old woman accidentally fell off a cliff while climbing, and her friend came back from asking for help, leaving only white bones
On a sunny March day in the Pyrenees, Mary and her friends happily arrived at this climbing mecca in a van. They had already planned to show their interest in rock climbing on this sunny weekend.
Mary, as the most experienced member of the team, had a happy smile on her face. But when she tried to climb over a very steep cliff, one of them accidentally stepped into the air, and the whole person fell halfway up the mountain! The others were stunned and at a loss.
Mary's partner, Jack, was the first to react. He cautiously approached the edge of the cliff and was surprised to find that Mary was still alive, moaning at the bottom of the hillside.
But he immediately realized that he and his companions were powerless to rescue her. Jack asked another friend, Patsy, to stay where he was to look after Mary, while he quickly descended the mountain to find a cell phone signal and send a distress signal to the rescue center.
However, when he ran down the mountain in a hurry and led a team of rescuers back to the scene of the incident, they were greeted only by a pile of broken white bones on the ground, and a flock of vultures that had just eaten in the air and were flying away one after another.
Why do scavenging vultures attack living people?
Scavenger vultures are not bloodthirsty by nature, and they mostly survive by eating animals that have died of natural causes. In the human environment, vultures are less likely to actively attack healthy human individuals.
However, in recent years, with the large-scale development and utilization of wildlife habitats, the food source and living environment of vultures have been seriously damaged. In order to compete for limited food resources, some vultures began to attack livestock and living creatures.
After the tragic case of a 52-year-old woman being eaten by a vulture, it immediately caused an uproar in the entire European society, and public opinion was in an uproar. Civil society organizations have issued statements strongly condemning the long-term neglect of local governments in the management of wildlife sanctuaries and natural habitats, resulting in ecological imbalances and forcing docile scavenging vultures to attack humans at no return.
For a time, there were many-for-tat clashes between activists who protected the vultures and people who demanded personal safety. Under pressure from public opinion, the government in northern Spain had to explain the matter publicly and promised to take decisive measures to prevent a similar tragedy from happening again.
A specific example of the ferocious bloodthirstiness of the American black vulture
In the United States, the Black American vulture is known for its bloodthirstiness. These vultures are ferocious, especially during the annual calving season, when they silently hover over the farm, waiting for an opportunity to swoop down and prey on the newborn calves.
A group attack of six black condors was clearly recorded by surveillance cameras at the calf farm. In the picture, it can be seen that they first swarm around the newborn calf in an orderly manner, and then peck its eyes with their sharp beaks, so that the calf loses its vision for a moment, and then one by one from the back anus into the lower abdomen, in just ten minutes to tear a small calf alive and devour it into the abdomen, leaving only a mess of blood and bones.
Similar attacks of the Black American Eagle occur during the annual breeding season. Some experienced farmers have even witnessed the ewes weighing more than 100 kilograms being frantically eaten by the black American vulture during the difficult birth.
They feast on their hearts and are cruel to the extreme. For this reason, the herders on the breeding front were terrified, and deeply felt that these black American eagles, which were protected by the law, were just like "gangsters with skinning knives".
However, experts believe that the large-scale lethality rate of vultures to livestock herds in such incidents is not high, and it is more of a random chance attack, which may not be able to truly form a large-scale harm.
The mystery of why vultures are safe to eat carrion
Why are vultures considered a delicacy when they are disgusting to ordinary people? The secret lies in their powerful digestive system and tenacious immune system.
Studies have shown that vultures secrete up to 99% hydrochloric acid in their stomachs, far exceeding the concentration of gastric acid in ordinary birds. This gastric juice, which resembles a strong acid, can form an extremely acidic environment in the stomach, in which most pathogenic bacteria cannot survive at all.
Any harmful bacteria that enter the vulture's stomach are quickly killed by this high concentration of acid.
In addition, the vulture's small intestine has special antibodies that neutralize a variety of toxins released by bacteria, and their powerful liver detoxification system can quickly break down leftover toxins in food.
Even the vulture's body is parasitic with a special probiotic, which can produce a variety of nutrients for the vulture, forming a mutually beneficial symbiotic relationship with the host. With the help of this flora, vultures are able to absorb a variety of nutrients such as protein from decaying animal carcasses to support their growth.
It can be said that the symbiosis and mutual benefit established between vultures and some of the microflora in their bodies is an important genetic cornerstone for them to calmly face the feast of carrion.
Call for the protection of vultures, which are an integral part of the biological chain
This rare vulture attack is shocking and regrettable. However, we must not choke on the vultures and expel them as bloodthirsty beasts. It is necessary to deepen the reflection on the ecological environment and adopt a scientific attitude.
In fact, in the long process of biological evolution, there is a complex network of interdependence between species. Vultures serve as scavengers by eating carrion, reducing the spread of pathogenic bacteria and providing an important link in the food chain for other carnivores.
They have coexisted and prospered with humans for thousands of years, and only recently have they been anomalous in extreme environments.
Therefore, rational protectionism calls for people not to fall into a total denial of the vulture race on a case-by-case basis. Instead, humanity should look at the loss of biodiversity caused by overexploitation and predatory use of their habitats.
Only by strictly controlling the intensity of development, restoring the ecological balance, and allowing wild animals to regain sufficient space for activities, can wild communities such as vultures return to their peaceful nature and live in harmony with humans again.