Conference misery::feline

418.0. "A SAD SIGN OF THE TIMES..." by SANFAN::BALZERMA () Sat Oct 17 1992 21:47

                     CONTRA COSTA WEIGHS OFFER OF
                       $3 FOR EACH CAT CARCASS
                            by Dan Reed
                      Chronicle Correspondent
    
    A PLACER COUNTY [CA] FIRM THAT MARKETS CAT CARCASSES TO BIOLOGY LABS
    IS OFFERING TO PAY $3 EACH FOR CONTRA COSTA COUNTY'S DEAD CATS.  AND
    BECAUSE TIMES ARE TIGHT, THE COUNTY MIGHT JUST SELL.
    
    Michael Ross, administrative officer for the county Animal Services
    Department,said yesterday that his cash-starved department could earn
    as much as $14,000 a year by selling barrels of unwanted cat corpses
    to Sargeant's Wholesale Biologicals, a Loomis firm that sells the
    feline bodies to biology labs for dissection.
    
    Last year, county officials administered lethal injections to 10,633
    animals.  Of those, 6,206 were cats.  The bodies, stored in a county
    refrigerator, are picked up twice weekly and trucked to a rendering
    plant in Sacramento County.
    
    The county spends a little more than $12,000 a year  to have the tallow
    company pick up the the animal bodies.  Ross said that sending fewer
    cats to the plant would not reduce costs.  "They have set expenses if
    they come down for one barrel or several barrels, " he said.
    
    THe proposed cat bounty could give a slight boost to the departments
    $3.2 million budget, which was cut by $250,000 this year.  But Ross
    said he wants to avoid any misperception that he would rather kill and
    sell cats than to have them adopted.
    
    "It's public image," he said.  "If a person has a perception that we
    are not aggressively trying to adopt animals and we are instead trying
    to make money off of them, they would be less likely to surrender
    animals to us.  (That concern) has to be balanced against the montetary
    advantage of going along with the proposal."
    
     
                                          

    Sort of in relation to this topic...  Does anyone know what they do
    with the bodies of cats that have been euthanized at the vets and not
    cremated and returned to the owner?  They don't do this or do they?
    Karen

    
    re -1 > Since I'm so unsure of what they do to our poor babies, mine is
    right in my back yard where I know he lays peaceful and undisturbed!