Without vultures, carcasses are slow to rot and disease-carrying flies abound

Without vultures, carcasses are slow to rot and disease-carrying flies abound

“Absolutely disgusting, so grim, the worst fieldwork of my life, but also extremely rewarding in a very odd way,” said Julia Grootaers, describing her three months collecting data among rotting pig carcasses in Costa Rica’s Osa Peninsula. For her master’s thesis at the University of Exeter, U.K., Grootaers was part of a study examining how vultures affect carrion (decaying flesh) decomposition in neotropical ecosystems. Their findings, published…