This topic reminded me of a documentary I watched a few years ago, about the Zoroastrian Towers of Silence, used for sky burials.
To Zoroastrians, fire, water and earth represent sacred elements that should not be defiled by the bodies of the dead, so cremation/funeral pyres, ground burial or burial at sea are not an option, and on the other hand feeding animals with one's remains is considered that person's final act of charity.
The only actively used Towers remain in India, but as 99.9% of India's vultures died out in recent decades, the remaining population is not sufficiently large to eat the bodies fast enough. The vultures used to be able to clean out a body in minutes, now it takes weeks and the bodies start decomposing, which is a problem since due to the recent expansion of cities, the Towers are now in densely populated areas.
The local Parsi community are looking into solutions, from using concave mirrors (solar concentrators) to accelerate decomposition, to ozone machines that would reduce the odors of decomposition, to vulture breeding programs in aviaries built over and around the Towers, hoping to breed enough vultures for the task.
Anyway, just found that interesting.
