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Road Kill,
Racehorses and Zoo Animals
In some countries,
large road kill is recycled into pet food. This
makes some sense, particularly if the road kill is
a recognized food species such as deer. As well as
road kill, some rendering plants (not in the UK)
which supply cat food manufacturers have
reportedly added such diverse things as a circus
elephant, zoo animals, police horses, wild horses
(in some areas they are considered a serious
pest), kangaroo and even cats and dogs from animal
shelters.
There is no doubt
that zoo animals and circus animals must be
disposed of somehow. One theory about BSE suggests
that it can be traced to an antelope from a zoo,
meaning that prion disease may have been imported
into Britain from Africa. Horsemeat is not used in
British pet-foods so every year hundreds of
British wild ponies are exported to European
countries where there is no horsemeat taboo. In
the US and feral horses (mustangs) and feral
donkeys (burros) have been used in pet foods.
Australian wild horses (brumbies) are culled as
serious environmental pests and there is potential
for recycling the culled horses. Every year,
hundreds of racehorses, show-jumpers and riding
school horses/ponies are "retired".
Rendering is an efficient way of recycling their
carcasses.
Each year hundreds
of greyhounds are "retired" or fail to
make the grade. It is suspected that many end up
at rendering plants, either openly or secretly.
There are unconfirmed rumors that victims of
gangland killings are sometimes disposed of in the
same way. It is my understanding that laboratory
animals must be incinerated as "medical
waste" because they were used for drug tests,
cosmetic trials or were deliberately infected with
disease.
Domestic Pets
It seems macabre,
but in some countries cats and dogs are recycled
into pet food and livestock feed. Rendered pets
are just another source of protein. Some American
vets believe that the use of pets in pet food is
routine practice. Rendering is a cheap viable
means of disposal for euthanized pets which can be
mixed with the other slaughterhouse products unfit
for human consumption, rotten meat from
supermarket shelves, so-called 4D animals (Dead,
Diseased, Dying, Disabled), road kill and other
animals. No pet owner will see listed ingredients
such as "raccoon meat" or "cat
by-products" and most recycled pets end up in
fertilizer (meat and bone meal). Since the
rendering plant labels each batch according to the
predominance of a specific animal, it
doesn't mean that other animals were not in the
mix in small quantities.
According to
American veterinarian Fred Bisplinghoff,
Consultant for the Animal Protein Producers
Industry (APPI) the belief is unfounded. He says
that adverse publicity and scare stories have
dictated that renderers get rid of small animals
or make arrangements to sell their end products
into markets other than the pet-food market.
Rendering is an economical, environmentally sound
way of disposing of pets. The alternatives,
necessary where rendering operations do not
process pet carcasses, are burial or incineration
- expensive and polluting. In the UK, euthanized
animals are classed as medical waste and
incinerated. There are also incineration
facilities which deal only in infectious animals
which cannot be rendered (e.g. BSE) In my own
locality a local pig farmer has an incinerator and
he incinerates pets and road kill sent by vets and
local authorities.
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