Body of female hiker devoured by vultures in less than an hour

The body a woman was devoured by vultures after she slipped and fell to her death while hiking in the Pyrenees mountains, south-western France.

The woman, of French nationality and aged fifty-two,  was hiking with her husband and a friend near Pic de Pista. She slipped and fell 1,000 feet down a snowy slope. According to Major Didier Pericou of the gendarmerie, she died during the fall.

In the time between the fall and the arrival of the rescue helicopter, the woman's copse had been picked clean by vultures. According to some reports, it took the vultures less than an hour to reduce the corpse to a pile of bones, clothes and boots.

Pyrenean farmers have complained than laws protecting the birds have led to overpopulation, posing a threat to local livestock

Since a European court ruled that dead animals must be burned due to the danger of BSE transmission, the vultures' food supply has been critically lowered.