Because of its scavenging properties, vultures represent "death" in many people's hearts, but wherever vultures stop, there are basically dead creatures, and some intelligent animals will also follow the vulture's flight trajectory to find food.
But in 2013, a shocking incident happened, according to the "Daily Mail", a 52-year-old female tourist climbing in the Pyrenees in southwestern Europe, as a result of the accident slipped from 305 meters, because the rescue difficulty was beyond the level of the individual, the friend of the companion quickly called the police.
The police quickly sent a helicopter to search and rescue after receiving the police, the strange thing is that during the helicopter search and rescue, a large number of vultures were seen wandering in the sky, and they didn't care at first, but then a terrifying scene appeared, when the police confirmed the female tourist fell to the ground, only to find that only 45 minutes had passed, the female tourist was eaten by the vulture, leaving only a pair of white bones and clothes and shoes!
Vultures, which have always eaten carrion, have begun to eat living people?
A brief look at the "vulture"
Vulture belongs to the eagle family Vulture genus, body length 95~120cm, wings spread out up to 2.5~3.1 meters, from the outside, the vulture is black-gray all over, head hair is scarce, neck skin is blue, mainly distributed in Europe, Africa, Asia and other open and dry climate plateau areas.
Most of the vulture's nests are built on the cliffs, 3~5 years a year for the breeding period, vultures are rare monogamous animals in nature, female vultures lay an egg each time, the hatching period is 15~35 days, after the baby vulture breaks out of the shell, the adult vultures will take turns to take care.
Vultures are special in that they are scavengers, and with their excellent flight ability, they can glide at high altitudes while searching for food, and when they find a target, they will choose to hover in the sky, and they will not rush down immediately.
In order to confirm whether the prey is dead, the vultures will even stay nearby for 1~3 days, and then get close and test repeatedly, which is enough to see how cautious the vultures are.
Only when the vulture judges that its prey is completely dead, it will feast on carrion, at this time, there will be a competition between multiple vultures, a few to dozens of them, at this time, the vulture's neck will change from light blue to red, just like a human fights will be red.
Vultures with strong combat effectiveness can enjoy food first, ordinary vultures can only eat some leftover minced meat or bones, and the reason why vultures are not afraid of carrion is because they have strong stomach acid, and it is this stomach acid that allows vultures to play the role of "scavengers".
Why do vultures attack living creatures?
There is a joke on the Internet that seems to be very funny, but in fact, there is a scientific truth when you think about it, saying that if a vulture wants to hunt an adult, it needs to grab a turtle, then throw it in the air, and crush the person to death with a hard turtle shell.
Behind this paragraph, it is illustrated that vultures are difficult to defeat humans with direct attacks when facing adult humans, and the female tourists mentioned at the beginning of this article fell off the cliff, although they are not 100% sure that the female tourists were still alive when they were eaten by the vultures, but judging from the judgment of their peers, the female tourists are most likely not completely dead.
Of course, no one knows about this, but from the Xi of vultures, vultures often need 1~3 days to judge whether the prey is really dead, and female tourists only have about 45 minutes before and after falling off the cliff to being gnawed into white bones by vultures, which is also too exaggerated.
Regardless of whether the female tourist is actually dead or not, the vulture's behavior does not conform to the conventional logic of nature, although it is impossible to tell whether the vulture is actually attacking the living, but the following example is enough to prove that the laws of nature are quietly changing.
In 2005, a group of vultures attacked the camels of a herdsman's home in the Damaoqi grassland of Inner Mongolia, and in just 9 days, the herdsmen lost 6 large camels and 6 small camels.
Why do vultures attack living creatures?
From the vulture's point of view, when the food in the area is scarce to a certain extent, they can only take risks to attack living creatures in order not to starve to death, although this is contrary to the original intention of scavenging, but in the face of life and death pressure, vultures will also make changes.
Why is there less food?
It cannot be ruled out that the irregular development of aquaculture and animal husbandry has destroyed the habitat of vultures and other wild animals, which has also led to the reduction of other herbivores in the region.
After the European legislation burned dead animals and artificially disposed of animal carcasses, the food shortage of European vultures was also rapid, causing them to attack live animals such as cattle and sheep on a large scale, causing a certain degree of economic losses to farmers.
So in summary, if the food is not reduced, the vultures will not risk attacking living creatures, judging from the fact that the 52-year-old female tourist fell off the cliff and was eaten by the vultures in just 45 minutes, the survival pressure of the local vultures is not small, which is why they will behave so abnormally.
But we can't wantonly exterminate the vultures, if there are no vultures, the corpses of wild creatures will pollute nature, and a large number of bacteria, viruses and microorganisms will be transferred, and at this time, after the vultures eat it, these harmful substances will be eliminated with strong stomach acid, even if the harmful substances remaining in the vulture's body in the end, both in terms of quantity and harm, have been greatly weakened.
The vulture is one of the important roles of nature in purifying the environment, virtually reducing the spread of diseases and protecting human society in disguise.