Police in Germany are trying out a new weapon in the fight against crime - using vultures instead of dogs to find hidden corpses.
Three feathered detectives - called Sherlock, Miss Marple and Columbo - are being trained in Walsrode bird park in northern Germany, the BBC reports.
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 or densely overgrown.
However, German media report the experiment raises ethical concerns because of the risk that a vulture could start pecking at a body.
