[HN Gopher] Vulture shortage threatens Zoroastrian burial rites
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Vulture shortage threatens Zoroastrian burial rites
Author : YeGoblynQueenne
Score : 133 points
Date : 2024-05-04 12:13 UTC (10 hours ago)
(HTM) web link (www.theguardian.com)
(TXT) w3m dump (www.theguardian.com)
| celias wrote:
| Radiolab and 99% Invisible have podcasts about this
|
| https://99percentinvisible.org/episode/towers-of-silence/
|
| https://radiolab.org/podcast/corpse-demon
| miiiiiike wrote:
| If you're only going to listen to one, listen to the Radiolab
| episode. The Radiolab episode is crisp and well reported, the
| 99% Invisible episode is muddled and rambling by comparison.
| dctoedt wrote:
| "Our culture" really means "the ways in which we've become
| accustomed to doing things (because reasons), and which we
| believe everyone else should recognize as an entitlement for us."
|
| Likewise, "our culture is dying" seems like an overly-dramatic
| catch phrase for, "we don't like it that circumstances are
| changing and reducing our ability to do things in the manner to
| which we've become accustomed and are now _entitled_. "
|
| EDIT: As another commenter correctly says, it's not a great idea
| to drive vultures into extinction. My comment is about people
| whinging about it in a way that suggests it's all about _them_.
| sungho_ wrote:
| You seem to think that the only value of something is its
| practicality
| oivey wrote:
| I doubt that. You'd need to test taking away one of this
| person's non-essential luxuries to find out.
| amenhotep wrote:
| People in valuing intangible things for not obviously rational
| reasons that can be easily dismissed if you approach the entire
| world with an attitude of smug cynicism shock
| dctoedt wrote:
| Valuing intangible things [?] whinging when those intangibles
| are no longer adaptive to circumstances.
| bbarnett wrote:
| One thing that really bothers me, is a frozen culture. For
| example, Native Canadians would have a changed culture by
| now, 500 years after we showed up.
|
| Before our arrival, there was war between Native nations,
| cultural change due to trade and new inventions, and so on.
|
| Unless people believe that Natives didn't have new ideas,
| this is clearly so. And Native history shows change!
|
| To imagine that 500 years later, no music, language,
| culture, technology would have changed, is a massive
| disservice to both the intellect and capabilities of those
| peoples.
|
| Yet we enable things such as unrestrained hunting, and even
| whale hunting, for cultural reasons.
|
| As if a healthy Native nation wouldn't stop hunting
| endangered species! Come on!
|
| So yes, static "this is the way it was" is a load of
| hurtful outcomes.
|
| For all we know, Natives might have invented our tech by
| now, had we not intervened.
| bobthepanda wrote:
| > As if a healthy Native nation wouldn't stop hunting
| endangered species!
|
| The North American megafauna didn't disappear all by
| themselves. More recently, the Maori certainly made some
| species go extinct in New Zealand. https://en.wikipedia.o
| rg/wiki/List_of_New_Zealand_species_ex...
|
| If you're going to recognize that natives/first
| nations/etc. have agency then we have to accept the good
| and the bad instead of infantilizing them according to
| some fantasy ideal.
| bbarnett wrote:
| That wasn't my meaning.
|
| We have hunting quotas, and attempt to mitigate over
| fishing, and so on. Yes, we aren't perfect, but we try.
|
| My point was, if a contempary Native nation existed, had
| modern agriculture methods, and was able to subsist
| without hunting? I suspect they would self regulate as we
| do.
| pbj1968 wrote:
| Well, given as they couldn't come up with a functional
| wheel on their own... highly doubtful.
| drawkward wrote:
| Monocultures are fragile.
| exe34 wrote:
| This point of view isn't common, get used to it!
| ericd wrote:
| If you read the article itself, it's probably also just
| generally not a great idea to drive vultures into extinction.
| dctoedt wrote:
| > _it 's probably also just generally not a great idea to
| drive vultures into extinction._
|
| On _that_ we definitely agree! My comment is about people
| making it all about them.
| Boogie_Man wrote:
| Cultural and religious traditions bind us to the past and the
| future.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| If it's consumption of NSAID's that are killing the vultures, are
| the towers themselves not a risk? Are the dosages/drugs given to
| humans not a problem? Or is there some sort of preparation that
| would remove the NSAID's?
|
| I tried to research the Zoroastrian procedure, but it got gory
| pretty fast.
| bakul wrote:
| Diclofenac has been banned in India for veterinary use since
| 2006. Another NSAID that is not deadly to vultures is
| recommended for such use. Not sure why Guardian ran this story
| now as this is old news. The real crisis with plunging vulture
| population goes far beyond Zoroastrian burial rites. See
| https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_vulture_crisis
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| That Wikipedia article is what made made curious, as it says
| "drugs like diclofenac..." From that small bit, it seems like
| the many NSAID's given to humans such as ibuprofen or asprin
| could be issues. Even diclofenac seems to have some human
| use.
| bakul wrote:
| I suspect stronger drugs such as codeine etc are used for
| palliative care of humans in their last stages. Not sure of
| their effect on vultures. Parsi numbers have never been
| high and gradually decreasing (now about 70,000 in India),
| also they mainly live in relatively few places, most in
| Mumbai and nearby. The vulture population dropped from 40
| million to a few hundred so the primary cause must be from
| their non-human diet.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| And by decreasing you mean they are finally being
| assimilated into the general Indian population.
| bakul wrote:
| Low fertility rates (like in most well to do
| communities), interfaith marriages (if you marry a non-
| parsi and your kids are not considered parsi), aging
| population, migration out of India.
| boomboomsubban wrote:
| I assume NSAID's are still common, though opiates are
| stronger pain killers, antiinflammatory and fever
| reducers would still be helpful.
|
| That said, I'm not arguing the official explanation is
| wrong, just curious if the same thing would happen at the
| towers.
| quonn wrote:
| > Even diclofenac seems to have some human use.
|
| Sure. Voltaren.
| bitwize wrote:
| It's also administered orally.
| the__alchemist wrote:
| I'm in South East, USA, vice the Indian subcontinent. Did
| something happen here within the last year? (Maybe the same
| thing?) I haven't seen vultures (Turkey vultures) in maybe 3/4 of
| a year. They are usually ubiquitous and highly visible due to
| large wingspan, staying airborne for long periods etc, using
| thermals from roads/concrete etc that make them common in human-
| populated areas.
| hedora wrote:
| We have a lot of turkey vultures here in California.
|
| A few years ago, we found a few fresh dead (poisoned) rats in
| our barn.
|
| The turkey vulture population immediately dropped to zero at
| our house, and the rodent population skyrocketed for the next
| year.
|
| Please use traps (electrocution or old-fashioned wood and metal
| spring work best. The electrocution ones are more pet-
| friendly), and not poison to deal with your vermin.
|
| On a related note, we also have started to get Peregrine
| Falcons and Bald Eagles again.
|
| Hopefully those populations will continue to recover too.
|
| Poisoned rodents often wander around confused and screaming
| before they die, and if they do that in a field, they can take
| out a bird of prey instead of just the vultures.
|
| Seriously, just use the traps. They are way more humane. Also,
| you won't have to fish dead animals out of your vents and
| walls.
| pfdietz wrote:
| I went birding this morning near Ithaca, NY. Five turkey
| vultures, a bald eagle, and a kestrel (which caught and ate a
| mouse while we were watching) were among the species seen
| (and so many kinds of warblers. Really, why are there so many
| kinds of warblers?) I often see turkey vultures near our
| house (once a swooping flock of a dozen of them riding the
| wind coming up from the lake). Black vultures are starting to
| appear in this area also, most notably at the Cornell U.
| compost piles.
| bitwize wrote:
| RatX, MouseX, and RatRid baits by EcoClear use a combination
| of gluten and salt to dehydrate the rodent, rather than
| poisoning it with toxins. Supposedly, they work well against
| rats and mice while being safe for larger animals, including
| birds of prey, to consume. People may wish to consider using
| these baits as well for rodent control.
|
| https://ecoclearproducts.com/
|
| One of my favorite pest-control measures is furry and purrs
| when I stroke him. Currently we don't have rodents, but he
| likes to catch insects as well.
| jncfhnb wrote:
| Cats generally don't like hunting rats
| tomrod wrote:
| Funny, our barn cats growing up loved hunting everything,
| including rats. Maybe indoor cats might not be so
| inclined though.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| They will if you don't feed them.
| bbarnett wrote:
| It's a well established fact that animal populations are
| cyclictic, booming then starving, then booming again.
|
| Predator finds prey aplenty, and so is fruitful and multiplies.
| Then prey becomes so numerous, it eats prey until there are few
| left. Predator then has a population crash, and the prey
| rebound without predation.
|
| Over and over this happens.
|
| Is that what is happening here? Perhaps, as carrion eaters are
| susceptible too, when this happens to other populations. After
| all, during this cycle prey and predator both crash... leaving
| less carrion. And then of course carrion eaters can
| overpopulate too..
|
| So I wonder, is this just another clickbait headline?
| nothercastle wrote:
| Nah it's probably rat poison here
| rangerelf wrote:
| Nice try Mr. Rat Poison Salesman.
| yawpitch wrote:
| > So I wonder, is this just another clickbait headline?
|
| No. As the article makes _abundantly_ clear there's plenty of
| carrion, it's just poisoned. Nothing natural about it.
| bbarnett wrote:
| I see that's not even traditional poison, but instead
| something meant to help the cattle. Unfortunate.
| totalconfusion wrote:
| That's interesting, I wonder if this accelerates evolution
| from environmental pressure massively.
| EasyMark wrote:
| that is probably true in the absence of humans, but modern
| humans ruin all these cycles when they become part of them,
| often kill apex predators just because they're bored or their
| activities inadvertently kill them (poisoning everything in
| site because you don't like mice/rats)
| Shawnj2 wrote:
| IIRC the issue is that new common drugs for humans contain
| toxins that are deadly to vultures in high doses. One issue
| with just creating a vulture sanctuary around towers of silence
| is that it's nearly impossible to tell if a person has had any
| of those drugs and if so how much. Plus in that culture
| cremation/other forms of disposing of bodies are essentially
| sacrilege because the idea is that having the body touch the
| earth, fire, or water would be a bad thing which is why they do
| sky burials in the first place so it's not like they can just
| refuse burials.
| codezero wrote:
| I am in the South East too, but I see lots of vultures, but one
| weird? thing I noticed in the past 4 years is that I see them a
| lot more often in suburban areas/on sidewalks eating roadkill
| than I had seen them in the past (usually seeing them circling
| freeways or rural areas)
| nukeman wrote:
| Old World Vultures are not closely related to New World
| Vultures (which are closer to storks). The mechanism which
| kills vultures in India and Africa does not present the same
| issue in vultures native to North America.
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| All my schoolboy taxonomy feels useless now! Crazy that it
| was convergent evolution.
| devilbunny wrote:
| Turkey vultures still going strong in my part of the SE USA.
| Ichthypresbyter wrote:
| Maybe they flew north? I've seen plenty of them in Maryland
| this spring.
| jajko wrote:
| Even in Iran, _the_ place for zoroastrianism, the towers of
| silence I 've seen are completely unused for decades. I've
| visited ie one in Yazd just outside the city some 8 years ago
| when international relationships were at highest point (if I knew
| I would go there ten times, absolutely amazing country and
| people, completely unspoiled by mass tourism).
|
| Zoroastrianism is fascinating and probably first major
| monotheistic religion and later ie judaism took a heavy
| inspiration from it. So much for everybody yelling how holiest
| their truth is and how chosen they specifically are, a lot of
| folks and mankind overall would benefit massively if they
| traveled more and more remote. I know I did.
|
| They have concrete building not far where they put their dead
| instead, forgot the exact procedure unfortunately but clearly its
| still ok within their religion. If in holiest city of whole
| religion which houses 'eternal flame' they can manage this, maybe
| other places should take a note too?
| rustcleaner wrote:
| Take with a grain of salt, but if Robert Sepehr's videos have
| any truth to them then the history and traditions which
| interweave from that time and place are rich and far reaching.
|
| Sepehr:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xf4FOpS1rU
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OBkgI34mMH0
|
| NOT Sepehr:
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6fI8rXPalMA
|
| https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kcMUBpC4leM
|
| (Do your due dilligence!)
| rustcleaner wrote:
| OUCH link 3 went private! It is titled "Sex The Secret Gate
| to Eden Gnostic Teachings" by Thelema Press and should be
| found elsewhere (if I notice it seemingly fully disappear, I
| can make it re-appear so seekers may find it and imbibe).
| psunavy03 wrote:
| > Even in Iran, the place for Zoroastrianism, the Towers of
| Silence I've seen are completely unused for decades.
|
| The fact that Iran is for all intents and purposes an Islamic
| theocracy with a veneer of democracy on top probably has
| something to do with this.
| xhevahir wrote:
| Yeah, no kidding. Iran hasn't been " _the_ place for
| Zoroastrianism " in a very long time.
| jajko wrote:
| If you think that Zoroastrianism there is heavily punished
| there by authorities, you are severely mistaken. Officially
| their number is roughly the same as in India, but in
| reality its much much more and they face no repressions
| that I could anyhow see or gather from talking to locals.
| But its not hard to understand why official numbers would
| not represent reality, unlike say in India which is cca
| democracy and this group is quite powerful there.
|
| Or do you have more of personal experiences from Iran that
| contradict mine?
|
| I've also been to beautifully restored old christian church
| in the heart of the big city (forgot which one, maybe
| Isfahan), no issues I just went in, there were masses
| happening there regularly. No hassle anywhere.
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| You could have spent 5 minutes looking it up, rather than
| speculating.
| kortilla wrote:
| > So much for everybody yelling how holiest their truth is and
| how chosen they specifically are
|
| This is a non-sequitur and travel definitely will not solve the
| issue. People are very well aware of the many other religions
| even now currently being practiced and are still convinced
| theirs is correct.
| jajko wrote:
| I am not claiming it will automatically click with every
| single simpleton who has been spoon fed one single truth
| since birth, thats extremely hard place to ever get from.
|
| But seeing culture, people, history, and religions too puts a
| massive perspective change. I could see that ie my wife
| traveling across India backpacking had her eyes opened quite
| brutally compared to her strict catholic upbringing, and it
| was definitely this cultural/religious shock.
|
| Seeing other religions as equal to yours - how many folks do
| you know that actually have that? Seeing refugees not as
| bothersome scum coming to rape and steal and take social
| payments but same people as you, with same type of dreams,
| fears etc... again this ain't something you will ever get to
| from watching news, and that's how most people get all their
| relevant info, thats the folks likes of trump feed from, from
| their fears and hate for things they don't actually know,
| only heard about.
|
| Being treated the nicest from poorest people of the world
| (dalits in India in my case), complete stranger yet they
| shared the very little they had with me, and helped me
| tremendously, repeatedly.
|
| There is tons of islamophobia in Europe, especially in
| eastern part but I can see it literally everywhere. Most
| folks like that I talked to have absolutely 0 clue, they just
| pick few worst news about terrorism attacks, some 'alternate'
| media talking same stuff for 2 decades. Yes going to all-
| inclusive package tour to say Egypt and staying in absolute
| tourist bubble for 2 weeks ain't going to change anybody. I
| wasn't talking about _that_ sort of traveling, but exact
| opposite of it.
| odyssey7 wrote:
| There's a global epidemic of grievous inflammatory disease in
| cattle caused by the paratuberculosis bacterium.
|
| The challenge can be solved entirely by vaccines, it's just not
| prioritized. You can simply "cull" a sick cow and sell the
| diseased meat in the grocery store.
|
| The article doesn't say what the inflammatory diseases in the
| cows are in India, but I wonder if it's the same.
|
| Edit: Yes, researchers have identified widespread
| Paratuberculosis infections in India. "Our research on screening
| of over 26,000 domestic livestock for MAP infection using 4
| different diagnostic tests (microscopy, culture, ELISA and PCR),
| during last 31 years has shown that the average bio-load of MAP
| in the livestock population of India is very high (cattle 43%,
| buffaloes 36%, goats 23% and sheep 41%)." [1]
|
| [1] https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/29090657/
| KineticLensman wrote:
| A factor that devastates African vulture populations is when
| poachers lace carcasses (e.g. rhinos killed for their horns) with
| poison, because vultures circling a kill reveal the presence of
| the poachers to wardens. A single big poisoned carcass can kill
| dozens of vultures at a time, of multiple species.
| jncfhnb wrote:
| Isn't it a myth that vultures circle kills
| standeven wrote:
| I've personally seen turkey vultures circle carcasses on
| several occasions.
| soulofmischief wrote:
| I've witnessed it many times myself.
| DontchaKnowit wrote:
| No. They'll even circle live animals if they can tell they
| are sick or dying.
|
| I personally witnessed this in the city trash dump of
| Tegucigalpa. Emaciated cattle grazing in trash, with cultures
| circling above them.
| fakedang wrote:
| Also vultures circling the battlefields of every Attila,
| Genghis Khan and Tamerlane, before swords were joined.;)
| el_benhameen wrote:
| Different area and I assume different vultures, but head on
| out to the east east bay in the summer and you'll see plenty
| of vulture circles.
| optimalsolver wrote:
| They absolutely do on the East African savannah.
| swatcoder wrote:
| They circle and kettle in other circumstances as well, but
| no, they definitely do circle iver carcasses (and what may
| soon become so). It's a familiar site if you live around
| them.
|
| Do you remember where you heard it's a myth? I'd be curious
| to see how that argument was made.
| jncfhnb wrote:
| The circling behavior is, as I read, almost always them
| waiting for a warm current to take them elsewhere.
| swatcoder wrote:
| That's something they seem to do, for sure. It's just not
| the only thing.
|
| They're not very vocal and are very social, so circling
| over carcasses might be a way to signal to others that
| they've found something.
|
| They also form kettles as a big communal thing, too, for
| neither of those purposes. I've seen as many as 50 or 60
| circling together for well over an hour, with no food
| nearby and no clearly no interest in going anywhere else.
|
| (This is all turkey vultures in the US. These African
| vultures might have different behaviors, but I wouldn't
| be surprised if they are mostly comparable in terms of
| variety and sophistication)
| thebeardisred wrote:
| Where did you read this? I would love to learn more.
| jncfhnb wrote:
| https://www.forbes.com/sites/quora/2017/10/25/why-do-
| buzzard...
|
| https://www.quora.com/Why-do-buzzards-circle-around-
| their-pr...
|
| https://www.livescience.com/32202-how-do-vultures-find-
| dead-...
|
| https://www.adirondackalmanack.com/2020/07/turkey-
| vultures-c....
| swatcoder wrote:
| Thanks for sharing these!
|
| And yeah, on close read, you'll see that they're all
| trying to communicate that you can't _assume_ that the
| vultures are circling a carcass whenever you see them
| circling because they have other behaviors that involve
| circling as well. But it 's an easy detail to miss in
| some of them for sure!
| KineticLensman wrote:
| Myth or not, the poachers believe it and murder the vultures
| as a result.
|
| I've worked with vultures at a raptor conservancy. They are
| social, curious and intelligent birds. I have very fond
| memories of an Egyptian vulture named Boe who would
| unfailingly undoe my shoelaces when I entered her aviary. I
| love these birds
| spookie wrote:
| As someone who lived near Egyptian Vultures and Eurasian
| Black Vultures (Aegypius monachus), I can assure you they do.
| But that's not the only reason for them to do so.
| mehulashah wrote:
| It's interesting how burial rituals change over time. Now, we're
| talking about composting our bodies, which in some sense returns
| the remaining minerals back to where they came from in the earth.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| Which is what burial also accomplishes. What's composting a
| human body outside of a burial?
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| I'm always a little jealous that there still exists an active,
| continuously practised Indo-European religion in Iran, even if a
| minor one. They have something that Europeans and their diaspora
| have lost.
| dyauspitr wrote:
| Hinduism. It's 1/7th of humanity.
| LAC-Tech wrote:
| Sure, but that's further away from Europe :)
| dyauspitr wrote:
| I feel you. Unfortunately once it's gone, it's gone
| forever. Any attempt at revival seems corny and contrived
| and lacks any gravitas.
| TexanFeller wrote:
| Bad for the environment, but good for the world if it makes a
| group of people less able to practice a religion.
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