This TED Talk features forensic anthropologist Lauren Farr, recorded live at TEDx LSU, 2017.

My parents always wanted me to be a doctor, but a doctor that studies how vultures eat dead things is probably not the type of doctor my parents had in mind.

I study bolter scavenging behavior and how bultures affect crime scenes.

I'm here to talk to you about how we take vultures for granted in forensic science.

Before we do that, I want to tell you a story.

So we're going to take a trip.

All 1,000 of us. It's May 2014, and want to tell you a story. So we're going to take a trip. All 1,000 of us.

It's May 2014, and we're standing in a park in Nashville, Tennessee because we've been at a horse race.

As we wait for the porta potty, we see two ladies in their Sunday best, heels, pearls, and lovely floppy derby hats.

At any moment, we expect them to start talking about

their grandmas find China, but they don't. Instead, we hear them say, oh, look, something must be

dead. We look up and to the left and see vultures circling round in round.

It occurred to me at this very moment that if these ladies at the derby are aware of

vultures connection to death, then why aren't we talking more about these birds at crime scenes?

People know that vultures are connected to death, but they don't really understand how.

For example, here's an email I received from a detective in Louisiana.

Lauren, there's been a kidnapping.

What buzzards or vultures do we have in Louisiana?

Before we address the kidnapping, I'll first address this buzzard vulture question I get all the time.

Buzzards don't live in the United States.

They are hawks that live in Europe.

The big black bird you see circling in the sky within the U.S. are vultures. The two types of vultures that live in Louisiana or the turkey vulture, and black vulture.

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