Police Vultures

I've heard that experts claim vultures are more intelligent and also more susceptible to taming and training than other birds of prey - pretty cool birds once you get to know them.

From BoingBoing:

http://www.boingboing.net/2011/06/03/police-vultures.html

Police vultures

David Pescovitz at 9:38 AM Friday, Jun 3, 2011 

Police in northern Germany are training vultures to seek out dead bodies. Appropriately, the three vultures are named Sherlock, Miss Marple, and Columbo. From the BBC:
Police used a piece of shroud from a mortuary for the training exercise, German media report. The vultures are thought to be better than sniffer dogs at finding bodies when a large area has to be searched and the terrain is difficult, for example if it is densely overgrown.
But the experiment raises ethical concerns because of the risk that a vulture could start pecking at a dead body, the Berliner Morgenpost newspaper says.