Okay, so that’s the headline everyone’s using. Get over it.
Huge uproar in St. Louis over euthanized pets being “rendered” into various usable bits, including, with some irony, pet food.
Of course, for all the knee-jerk reaction, the animals being so treated are those put down at local shelters for lack of anyone to care for them. All those pet owners, thinking of Foofie ending up as a bit of Alpo, aren’t thinking this through.
Hoping to free themselves from the public-relations fiasco, the rendering plant announced just before Christmas that it would stop accepting euthanized dogs and cats.
But the local animal shelters couldn’t stop euthanizing. And so in counties and small towns throughout the region, animal carcasses began to pile up.
“We were taken flat-footed,” said Chris Byrne, an animal control official in St. Louis County.
Every solution was pricey. Hauling the animals to the nearest industrial-scale crematory would cost the county more than $57,000 a year. Building a crematory would cost up to $100,000. And there would be the contentious question of where to put it.
In the short term, with freezer space limited, the county has been forced to send its dead dogs and cats to a landfill. The city of St. Louis has taken the same route, arranging for a refrigerated trash truck to pick up the carcasses.
This makeshift solution has prompted still more concerns. If the landfills are not properly lined, the decaying corpses could leach into ground water. If they’re not promptly covered, scavengers can pick off the dead dogs and cats. And, as some have pointed out, chucking Fido in a dump scarcely seems a more dignified end than cooking him in a vat with dead cows.
Okay, let me say this carefully and calmly:
- These are unwanted animals. Roving bands of renderers are not climbing into your backyard and stealing Foofie. These are strays, abandoned animals, who have not been claimed by their erstwhile owners. Tragic. But unless we’re going to build Club Foofie for all the unwanted strays (paid for by Your Tax Dollars), there are going to be carcasses, and they do have to be disposed of. LA City and County have to deal with 120,000 animals every year.
- These are animals. And they’re dead. They really don’t care whether they are buried on a clifftop overlooking the sea with a beautifully carved marble headstone saying, “Beloved Foofie. Fetch, boy!”, or whether they are dumped into a vat. Heck, I don’t expect I’ll care where my carcass is tossed afterwards — I expect to have more important things on my mind. Or nothing at all.
- If you are not among those who have spayed or neutered your pets, you don’t deserve a voice in this debate. Go away.
(Via Captain Rooba)
I couldn’t agree with you more. I actually thought that it was a clever way of dealing with the problem. Waste not, want not right?
Agreed. Granted, it does make think of bad Charlton Heston movies (“Soylent Green is people!”), but — yeesh, let’s have some measured, considered reaction here, people.
Soylent Green is Puppies and Kitties! That is a better solution so long as the carcasses are screened for dog and cat diseases.
the article notes that the process of rendering destroys bacteria/viruses.
i’m torn. it’s a very practical solution; nevertheless, it makes me sad. my (wanted) cat is eating the remains of unwanted pets. it feels like a violation of the bargain that humanity struck with pet animals.
something must be done with the dead animals. we’ve already screwed up in getting the animals to the point where they’ve become surplus carcassas. as it stands, i think rendering is the best way to go.
but it isn’t something i’m proud of.
My lack of pride is, as you say, in there being unwanted pets.
Two points:
One – in the not-so-distant past, many cultures were eating dog. Some still do. It is our perceptions and beliefs that color this issue. Pigs are accepted as being Much more intelligent than dogs. Still eating hotdogs? Well, then.
Two – Does the process really sterilize the product? I can’t help but think of Mad Cow Disease here… anybody else get that weird ‘are you lying to me again’ feeling?