Swarm of starving vultures 'ate cow alive'

When a French pensioner died of a brain haemorrhage during a walk in the Pyrenees this summer, vultures started circling low over the body.

"His three friends were really frightened," said a local resident. "They were convinced the vultures were going to attack. They shouted and waved their arms and, in the end, they managed to scare the birds away. But they were in a complete panic."

There have been reports from across the French Pyrenees this year of a radical change in the way the region's vultures behave. A programme to incinerate animal carcasses in Spain has deprived "les vautours" of food, causing them to become aggressive. Where once they scavenged, now they hunt, say farmers.



Alain Larralde, a cattle breeder in Ilharre in the French Basque country, said that in May he saw dozens of birds circle and kill a cow in a meadow. "I saw the cow slumped on the ground in the middle being devoured," he said.

Officials have registered 42 demands this year for compensation from breeders who say that their livestock has been attacked by vultures. There were 33 requests last year.

But Denis Vincent, of the French Bird Protection League, said farmers were blaming vultures for killing animals when they were really eating carcasses.