Vanishing Vultures A Grave Matter For India's Parsis

NPR ^ | 5 September 2012 | eliot Hannan

[Cronos]

Zoroastrians believe that fire is holy and that the earth is the source of life, so the best way to dispose of a body is to let the vultures eat it.

[GraceG]

If Iran was still ran by Zoroastrians it would be a LOT easier to deal with it.

[NonValueAdded]

Have they considered fire ants?

[Sherman Logan]

Makes as much sense as burying the bodies and letting bacteria and worms eat it.

For a really interesting way of dealing with a corpse, check out sky burial in Tibet.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sky_burial

[driftdiver]

yet one more reason why I won’t ever visit that country

[Cronos]

I think so too.

[Cronos]

because there aren’t enough vultures? :)

[Ransomed]

“...until studies found that a drug administered to cattle in India killed the vultures when they fed on the carcasses.”

I was curious if the drug was given on purpose to kill vultures or a side effect. I guess it was a side effect.

http://www.nytimes.com/2004/01/29/world/a-drug-used-for-cattle-is-said-to-be-killing-vultures.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm

Freegards

[brooklyn dave]

Too bad the Zoros are dying out. Interesting religion.

[brooklyn dave]

Too bad the Zoros are dying out. Interesting religion.

[CrazyIvan]

We've got plenty in Illinois. Maybe I should go into the
buzzard export business.

[I am Richard Brandon]

"yet one more reason why I won’t ever visit that country"

Your loss! And Mickey D does not serve beef. And the Tower of Silence is fairly near the center of Mumbai. And they burn bodies by the Ganges and throw the ashes in. And they have a bigger film industry than Hollywood. And they have the world's biggest (and successful) 'heart hospital'. And one of the world's biggest steel industries. And they own Jaguar and Rover cars. And they make the cheapest car. And .. and .. and. As I say - your loss.

[driftdiver]

and they advertise jobs as public rat catchers, and have 30,000 people with college degrees apply for a job involving a flashlight and a stick to kill rats.

I’ve meet many fine people from India. They don’t want to live there either.

[Tijeras_Slim]

Business opportunity here.

[Boogieman]

Freddie Mercury was a Zoroastrian, and supposedly had a traditional funeral. I wonder if he got this treatment too?

[Bigg Red]

I have absolutely no desire to visit any flies-on-your-face country.

[GladesGuru]

“I have absolutely no desire to visit any flies-on-your-face country.”

Heard about Obama’s “Circle Fly” problem?

[Sherman Logan]

And they burn bodies by the Ganges and throw the ashes in.

Unfortunately, the bodies are not always thoroughly burned before being tossed in. Fuel is expensive, you know.

[M1903A1]

I used to know a fellow (now deceased) who was a veteran of the China-Burma-India theater. The only war story he told me was of when his unit boarded a troopship anchored in the Ganges at Calcutta to head home. He said that the only water the ship took on in the Ganges was for engine cooling...he and his men were on emergency water rationing from the moment they boarded the ship until they were out in the open ocean. Even at that time, the river was so polluted that it would have wiped out the ship’s water distillers within minutes.

[Hiddigeigei]

The Parsis should consider the dermestid beetles which are used to clean flesh from animal to produce skeletons for anatomy classes.


I once had a comparative anatomy professor who was given a dead horse. He hauled the horse up to the roof of the science building, and set the demestids on it to clean away the flesh. Unfortunately, the beetles couldn't keep up with the rot, and the odor began to descend floor by floor down through the building. It got to the point where the students and other professors couldn't stand the stench, and the poor anatomy professor had to hire a tall crane to lift the horse’s remains off the building in order to dispose of it in a landfill.