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However, airport officials and local residents felt the risks - both to pilots and to public health - remained too high, forcing officials to bury their plans.
I love the British and their wit.
Vultures pick off human body farm
Plans by a US university to build a human "body farm" have been set back amid fears of vultures flocking towards the whiff of decomposing corpses. A nearby airport said the scavenging birds could endanger low-flying aircraft as they circled the body farm.
Residents were also said to be unhappy with plans to keep up to nine cadavers at the facility at any one time.
Texas State University had wanted to use the site to study how humans decompose under a range of conditions.
Forensic scientists use data from body farms to learn about how the human body decomposes in a range of controlled situations, to aid criminal investigations.
Two other body farms are already operational in the US, one established at the University of Tennessee in 1971, and the other in 2006 in North Carolina.
Shallow grave
Texas State researchers had planned to begin using a site near Texas' San Marcos Municipal Airport later this year.
Up to nine bodies would be kept on site, some buried underground, others in shallow graves, and some even left in the open. Most bodies used by the scientists are made available for medical research by prior consent.
But the plans fell foul of the vultures - known locally as buzzards - which frequent the skies and feed on dead animals and other carrion on the ground.
Plans for the site included a razor-wire fence around the property, vulture-proof cages to protect exposed bodies and a 70ft (21.3m) grass buffer around the site to absorb rainwater as it runs away.
However, airport officials and local residents felt the risks - both to pilots and to public health - remained too high, forcing officials to bury their plans.
"There's a lot of people who don't want it their backyard, and that's certainly understandable," said Mark Hendricks, a university spokesman.
"It's a controversial project, there's no doubt about it."
Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/h...as/6646177.stm
Published: 2007/05/11 10:52:32 GMT
© BBC MMVII
However, airport officials and local residents felt the risks - both to pilots and to public health - remained too high, forcing officials to bury their plans.
I love the British and their wit.
GOD, I can't stand that whiney british accent.
Hugh Grant is cool though. Anybody that can be hitting up Liz Hurley and still feel the need to have pros utes on the side gets points for being that confident.
I don't know why they couldn't build hardware cloth/wire cages over the bodies to keep the wildlife away. I figure coyotes, raccoons, etc would get at the bodies, too.
I thought I read somewhere that these would be mostly pig bodies either way.
Gives new meaning to the cheer, "Eat 'em up, Cats!"
that would keep them from getting at them, but do nothing otherwise. they would still come.
"but do nothing otherwise"
It would allow the study of the bodies undisturbed, unchewed.
I've tried to get close to them to take pics, eating a big black dog that died in a wooded area near my house. The turkey buzzards are extremely cir spect, shy birds. There must be some decoy or action to scare them off.
they are shy, but any animal that can spot a corpse from that high would either ignore the decoy or assume the decoy was dead as well.
I didn't know vultures were shy. Maybe they get braver in packs because one day I saw at least 30 vultures together on the side of the street, and as I drove by none of them even flinched.... freaked me out.
Isn't that the whole point -- to see what gets at the bodies?
no, the point is to see how the bodies decompose unburied, semi-buried, shallowly buried, for forensic science. State of decomposition gives a clue to time of death.
Of course, in the wild, it's given that a body will be eaten by critters. But there is still some value apparently in observing decomposition without the critters.
Makes sense. Bodies are always dumped in vulture-proof cages. the mob has single-handedly kept the vulture-proof corpse cage industry afloat for years.
they could see how vulture carcasses rot at the same time when they shoot them the down for ing with their experiment. there's a big pack of them that hang out ride in the middle of san marcos and they were an eyesore. made it look like something was dead all the time
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