Life-Saving Vultures?

A recent study in India found that the birds act as a sanitation system in developing nations with less advanced infrastructure. With the strongest stomach acid in the animal kingdom, the scavenging birds of prey help control pathogens, such as rabies, by eating infected carrion.

Vulture populations in India were rapidly wiped out in the 1990s by anti-inflammatory medication that farmers began administrating to their livestock. After consuming carcasses with medication in their systems, the vultures would suffer kidney failure and die. The result was the loss of 91–98% of several vulture species. Without vultures to clean up diseased animals, deadly bacteria and viruses spread and killed about half a million people over five years.

Death and disease weren’t part of God’s original very good creation. But in his grace, God designed creatures with the ability to adapt in a fallen world, some even contributing to the preservation and flourishing of human life. Though original vulture kinds would not have eaten other animals, their design speaks of a Creator who created them with the traits needed to adapt and do their job well in a fallen world.