Sorry about the title, I couldn’t think of how else to phrase the question without making it a paragraph.
See, our local zoo has just had a long time resident, a hippo, die. She was forty five, one of the oldest hippos in captivity. How in the heck does one get rid of a big, dead hippo? Or an elephant? Or something similarly large?
I imagine it could be buried, or burned, but wouldn’t it be rather hard to lift that sucker? And forgive me, but I keep having visions of horses and chain saws, like the scene in the office of the university president, in Animal House.
Around here, if you have enough land, you can dig a big hole and bury it, subject to local laws. Otherwise, you’d look in the Yellow Pages for a local rendering plant and have it hauled away. If you don’t have the equipment to move the corpse, one of the neighbors does.
Just a wild guess, but I suppose a zoo could use a front loader or something for a bigger animal: load it on a truck and haul it to the rendering plant.
It concerns the untimely demise of Puddles, a 44 year old hippo. Puddles had to be euthanised after problems developed following a move to temporary accommodation. The relocation was necessary to facilitate a refurbishment of the permanent quarters occupied by both Puddles and his mate Cuddles. For the journey between enclosures, Puddles and Cuddles were crated. The crates were then moved by crane.
Animals are sometimes moved using crates, vehicles, trucks, whatever way, and buried somewhere else. That “else” varies by zoo. And it also depends if they’re going to do a necropsy or not on the animal.
Also, depends on your definition of big. For example, at the Bronx Zoo, only the biggest animals (giraffe, elephant) were sent to a different field, where a field necropsy is done and then buried on site. It’s an off limits area within the zoo, where they don’t have any exhibits around.
When I did my pathology externship at the Bronx, I had to go there on a Sunday and necropsy an okapi (giraffe relative, size of a horse). That was about the largest animal that fit on the necropsy floor they had (yes, Bronx Zoo has its own hospital with necropsy hall). And the animals are disposed by incineration/chemical treatment.
At Zoo Atlanta, and others zoos, depends again on the size. Sometimes they send the animals to the place that does the necropsy. My current employer, UGA CVM, had the (un)fortune to do the necropsy on the pregnant elephant that died there last fall (check their website for details). The animal was put in a pick up truck by crates, taken all the way from Atlanta to Athens, and then a team of people worked on the necropsy, using tents to hide the body. The body pieces were incinerated.
They don’t give the carcasses to the carnivores for at least two reasons. The first one is you never know WTF killed the animal… and if it is something that the other animals can get??? The second one is… since so little is known about a lot of wildlife, and since you don’t know from what the animal died, and maybe it was something that is a herd problem and could affect others unless you intervene… necropsies are usually done on animals that die at the zoo.
The University of Maryland does the necropsies on a large variety of animals from all over the state, and DC. Dr. Ingling is an interesting man. I’ve seen an elephant, lion, horses, cows, and a multitude of other animals dropped off at his lab. After he’s done the necropsy, any animals that are too big to fit down the chute get cut up into pieces, and on comes the incenerator.
That last time I was in there, he was working on a grey stallion. It was on a motorized chain lift so he could move it around the lab. I asked what happened to it, and he pointed to a tumor hanging out of it’s butt. The lift took the horse to where the chute was, and he said, “Hmmm, that’s not going to fit”. He grabbed a handsaw, and proceeded to cut it’s legs off. Then it fit.
It’s not a place for a person with a weak stomach.
You know, answers like this are why I love the Dope, no matter what. I get straight answers, and I get humor.
Special thanks to KarlGrenze and Bowhunter. I couldn’t imagine burying say, a hippo, but I didn’t know if there were incinerators big enough. Now I know they may have to be dismembered. Ugh, strong stomach indeed.
I have dealt with the carcasses of large animals (mostly sea lions, up to about 800 lbs.) and we would cut them up after necropsy and send them to a rendering plant in the most disgusting metal drums I’ve ever seen in my life. The drums would get sent back to us with this crust all over the inside you see… Well, that’s probably TMI.
Some parts of these animals would be preserved for scientific or educational study. Two years ago I helped clean a Harbor Porpoise skeleton for display. We cut off huge chunks of its flesh, cleared some off with high-pressure hoses, then let bacteria digest lots of the rest. We repeated these steps many times over the course of a year. Unfortunately, not all the flesh went to the rendering plant. I can still smell the microscopic bits that must still be on the boots I was using.
Larger animals, like elephant seals and whales, either get towed back out to sea or buried on the beach where they’re found (in more remote locations, nothing gets done with them at all.) We have several beaches in our area with Humpback and Blue Whales buried beneath the sands. At some point, we may go out and dig up the skeleton when enough time has passed for the flesh to have decayed away. Awfully ghoulish, isn’t it?
Well, actually I think it’s quite practical. But another part of the question is, once it’s decided to bury say, a whale or an elephant, are hooks or something sunk into the corpse to drag it into the hole, or lift it by winching it up? Or is the corpse cut up and shoved piece by piece into the grave dug for it?
With that whale I’m assuming the institute would want the skeleton at least relatively intact, so cutting might not be an option.
I haven’t dealt with whales, but from dealing with other animals, pieces are cut up and disposed of during necropsy. So if they’re going to be buried, and they’re doing a necropsy, probably what will go into the hole are large body pieces, not the whole carcass.
The information quoted from this site, and the above comment from a reader of the piece, is the subject of sceptical comments by a contributor to another horse forum who also claims a connection with the Forest Service.
See posts #24 and #31.
In post #36, the same poster discovers a ‘historical document’ which explains exactly what explosive criteria are necessary for animal removal using this method.
