Why don’t vultures get sick from eating rotten flesh?

Vultures don’t always have the luxury of feeding on freshly killed carcasses! During the hot summer months, carcasses tend to decompose very rapidly which means that these birds have to contend with a meal that is in the state of decay.

Juveniles searching for food remains at a decaying zebra carcass.

As long as there is the possibility of some food left on the carcass, vultures will continue feeding.

In spite of the decay, this White-backed Vulture seems content to scavenge small tit-bits from the Zebra carcass.

As bacteria decompose a dead body, they excrete toxic chemicals that make the carcass a perilous meal for most animals.

We may cringe at the thought of being close to a rotten carcass, but they seem to relish such putrid meals even though they may be infected with rabies, anthrax bacteria and many other diseases that would otherwise be lethal to most scavengers.

Vultures have an impressive resistance to potentially deadly germs!

This juvenile White-backed Vulture seems happy to swallow beakfuls of crawling maggots!

In spite of their ability to feed on decaying carcasses, vultures appear for the most part, to live seemingly healthy lives.

So why is it that vultures don’t normally get sick from eating rotten flesh that is heavily loaded with pathogens? The answer lies mainly in the fact that their systems have co-evolved with bacteria over millions of years resulting in an extremely tough digestive system, which acts to destroy the majority of the dangerous bacteria they ingest. Their extremely acidic gastrointestinal tract is a strong filter of the microbiota ingested from decaying carcasses.

Text and photos by Hugh Chittenden

See a vulture ‘Clean up Crew’ in action

Why don’t vultures get sick from eating rotten flesh?

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