A Griffon Vulture
Vultures took just 40 minutes to devour the corpse of a woman killed in a fall from a mountain in the French Pyrenees.
Police who went to search for the woman found only bones, clothes and her shoes remained. Her flesh had been eaten by a group of Griffin Vultures, which are common to the area of southern France.
The 52-year-old victim had fallen 300 meters down a slope while on a walk with two friends, said Didier Pericou of the local gendarmerie. The woman’s body had been stripped to the bone before local mountain rescue teams could each her.
Local farmers say the vultures have increasingly become menace and have called for the lifting of European Union restrictions on hunting the creatures. One farmer, Alain Larraide, reported seeing vultures carrying off live animals, including an adult cow, before eating their victims. “You can’t imagine what it is like to see an animal eaten alive,” he said.
There have been 42 claims for compensation to local authorities in recent months for animals lost to the vultures.
