Amy Silverberg

Turkey vultures carry stomach acid strong enough to rival battery acid, and that chemistry turns each meal into a filter for pathogens that would kill most other animals. They are often treated as grim signs of decay. In practice they clean landscapes. Popular accounts put the pH of their gastric juice near zero, far more concentrated than human stomach acid, which is why they can eat carcasses loaded with microbes that would sicken livestock, wildlife, or people. That acid is widely credited with knocking down organisms linked to anthrax, rabies, botulism, and cholera as the meal is digested. By removing those carcasses, the birds cut a route that disease can take through an ecosystem. Their feeding looks ugly. The sanitary work is real.