After death

Thinking about recycling waste this morning while on the bus (which I’m not sure is a better alternative to motorcycles or your average automobile, seeing as it ingests diesel oil and spews this vast disgusting gray wavery cloud– though I’m sure some people enjoy it – and pollutes the air in the most flagrant manner. However, I don’t have to concentrate on the road when I’m having someone else drive me, so I can think of the most random things and develop them in my head.) , and the trail of thought turned to how nature recycles itself. For example, seals are eaten by predators, or die and become food for various decomposers. However, when seals are kept as pets by humans and die, they may either be buried as they are (the best way), or buried with a blanket (a waste of a blanket, but who knows what we humans are thinking?), or buried in a nice casket (now that’s unfair to the trees and/or waste of metal), or incinerated and kept in an urn(absolutely useless, you can’t even derive DNA from ash).
We humans seem to believe our deaths (and that of our loved ones) are sacred, and thus our remains must be preserved, or at least given special attention. Now that land is growing scarce, most people incinerate the remains (very popular in Asian countries, particularly such as India which makes a ceremony of burning the remains and throwing the ash into the Ganges). While I’m not disputing the theoretical religious portent of such ceremonies, it seems to be the most wasteful form of burial, especially as it entails the burning of extra logs and air pollution (when Philip Pullman was talking about dust, he wasn’t being literal).
With these cheerful thoughts in mind I generally meandered towards the Tibetan method of disposing bodies by exposing it to birds of prey. Let the cycle go on, one might say. While I believe birds of carrion, such as vultures, tend to lean towards the ugly side (melting skin formation), I find the idea of being eaten much more efficient than rotting quietly, and less wasteful than throwing a casket into the bargain.
What’s so special about carrion birds is that they are naturally animals who eat dead meat.
"Concerning vultures, from Wikipedia
These birds are of great value as scavengers, especially in hot regions. Botulinum toxin, the toxin that causes botulism, does not affect them, and they can eat rotten flesh containing anthrax and cholera bacteria.[1] When a vulture's dinner has too thick of hide for his beak to open, he waits for a larger scavenger to eat first.[2]"
Thus they are perfectly suited for recycling corpses.
Whether such a culture is applicable in other civilizations, however, is doubtful. In places where there are no large scavengers, could the natural predatory animals do as well?
If the human or pet corpse’s demise were caused by disease, the pathogen then has a chance of leaping species and adapting. This is not only deleterious for the predator, but creates an undesirable situation for humans as well: 1.Because the death causing pathogen can live on and 2.The death causing pathogen has a chance to evolve into an even more powerful agent of death. (ex:influenza)
Even if the corpse were not caused by disease, it being dead for some time often signals the on-set of various bacteria, which has the potential to cause havoc with the consumer’s longevity. This is not a desirable situation for the consumer and may deprive us of these necessary predators.
Last but not least, most non-scavengers generally have an aversion to dead meat – unless they were desperate or zoo pampered.
I wonder how intelligent it is to be buried naked?
Other interesting info on vultures (courtesy of Wikipedia):
"Threat due to diclofenac poisoning
Diclofenac poisoning has caused the vulture population in India and Pakistan to decline by up to 95% in the past decade, and two or three of the species of vulture in South Asia are nearing extinction.[3] This has been caused by the practice of medicating working farm animals with diclofenac, which is a non-steroidal anti-inflammatory drug (NSAID) with anti-inflammatory and pain killing actions. Diclofenac administration keeps animals that are ill or in pain working on the land for longer, but, if the ill animals die, their carcasses contain diclofenac. Farmers leave the dead animals out in the open, relying on vultures to tidy up. Diclofenac present in carcass flesh is eaten by vultures, which are sensitive to diclofenac, and they suffer kidney failure, visceral gout, and death as a result of diclofenac poisoning.
The decline in vultures has led to hygiene problems in India as carcasses of dead animals now tend to rot, or be eaten by rats or wild dogs, rather than be tidied up by vultures. Rabies among these other scavengers is a major health threat. India has the world's highest incidence of rabies.[citation needed]
The decline in vultures causes particular problems for certain communities, such as the Parsi, who practice sky burials, where the human dead are put on the top of Towers of Silence and are eaten by vultures, leaving only dry bones.
Meloxicam (another NSAID) has been found to be harmless to vultures and should prove an acceptable alternative to diclofenac.[3] The Government of India banned diclofenac, but over a year later, in 2007, it continued to be sold and is still a problem in other parts of the world.[3]"