Animal feeding on badly burned body

Nassau County, New York. This badly burned body had been dumped at an outside location where animals fed on the cadaver. Bodies are also subject to animal feeding, indoors as well as outdoors. Animals feed off the remains of a dead human body just as they feed off any other piece of meat. Bodies that have been mutilated by domestic and wildlife creatures or insect activity may give an appearance of gross injury, which is not necessarily associated with an antemortem attack. In addition, certain portions of the body may have been carried away or be missing from the cadaver due to animal activity. Practically speaking, investigators must be careful not to jump to any false conclusions based on their initial observations at scenes of this type.