There are all sorts of vultures here in Middle Tennessee. One often sees small groups of them beside the country roads, and there was a convention (about 20) of them in the pasture next to me a while back. There wasn’t anything big that was dead - the field is used for hay.
As far as funeral costs, when my father was dying of cancer, we did shop around. My mother chose an expensive casket, but certainly not from any pressure by the funeral home director. In fact, he told her about an insurance thingy she could sign up for which pays a large percentage of the funeral. We went to the local Catholic cemetery and chose a very nice gravesite under a tree. It was much less expensive at the Diocesan cemetery than the publicly owned ones. And after my father’s funeral she arranged and prepaid her own eventual expenses, so we don’t have to do that again.
StG