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Times Life
Times Life
Lifestyle
Aishwarya Kapoor

Why Vultures Are Irreplaceable Scavengers and What Their Extinction Means for India's Ecosystem

India Disease the Bombay Natural History Society Extinction BirdLife International IUCN Anthrax Assam Endangered Species Gout

A stomach that kills anthrax

Vultures have gastric acid with a pH close to 1, among the most corrosive digestive environments measured in any vertebrate. A carcass infected with anthrax, botulinum toxin, or rabies virus passes through that acid and exits neutralised. No other scavenger in India's food web does this. Jackals spread disease. Feral dogs spread disease. Vultures end it.

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