Scavenging

Understanding the ways in which disarticulation and scavenging takes place when human remains are concerned is important for locating scattered remains in a forensic context. Human remains are foraged by many different wild and domestic animals.  Carnivores will eat much of the soft tissue and spongy ends of long bones increasing the decay rate and larger animals (i.e. badgers, foxes) may disarticulate the body. Smaller rodents (i.e rats, voles) will also scatter smaller the remains while corvid birds may deflesh and even take fragments or small bones back to their nests (Sorg et al, 2000; Mann et al, 1990).
It is important to search the general area surrounding a cadaver for scattered remains.  Canids have been known to move bones as far as ½ km away from the source. The various stages of Canid assisted scavenging of which the fox is part of can be correlated to an observed post-mortem interval (see appendix, table 1).  In order to maximize recovery it is important to map any scattered remains.  This will help in understanding the scavenging patterns and assist in solving the case (Hunter and Sorg, 1997; Mann et al, 1990; Sorg et al, 2000).