In the case of a small animal passing away I imagine disposal of the body is quite simple via cremation of burial but what about larger animals? What if an elephant/giraffe/rhino/bear were to pop it’s clogs in a zoo, what do they do with the body? Burial would be very difficult for such a large animal and finding equipment large enough to cremate an elephant must be nigh on impossible. So what’s the Straight Dope?
Throw 'em to the lions and tigers. And some pieces go to the alligators or crocs if they have them. Waste not, want not.
OK, maybe not, but, thats what I would do.
The Prague Zoo has an enclosed aviary with I-beams and chain link fence to create a pretty big area for scavenger birds. They throw out halves of cattle occasionally, so you see them eating these corpses. Sorta neat, actually.
-Tcat
My guess (meaning I haven’t given it the slightest bit of research) is that for more unique animals - pandas, hippopatamussessessess, albino anything - they have a date with the taxidermist and eventual tenure in some natural history museum.
For your run of the mill bears, penguins, boas, I’d guess either taxidermy for private individuals or [del]the woodchipper[/del] a quiet incineration/cremation.
For the animals that occur as meat for others in the wild, assuming their deaths are not contagion related, I’d imagine they become food. Give the lions a little taste of zebra and such (assuming further that said carnivores will eat pre-killed food).
Outback Steakhouse?
Oh, great, now they’re going to sue me!
You know those hot dog vendors…?
Perhaps I’ve said too much.
[You Can’t Do That on Television]
“What do you think’s in the burgers?”
[YCDToTV]
I worked at MarineWorld/Africa USA in California in the 70’s and when a large male Orca (Nepo the Killer Whale) died they literally buried it out back beyond where the public could go. The park moved 10 years later to another town and Oracle’s headquarters were then built directly over where the park was. If they would have excavated deep enough I’m sure they would have found it, along with lots of other large animals that had passed away.
It wasn’t really that complicated. They rented a bull dozer, dug a really big hole, and then dropped him into it and covered him up. Incineration of a 10,000 lb animal wouldn’t have been practical and no museum apparently was interested in the carcass or bones. For smaller animals, say a bottlenosed dolphin or sea lion, natural history museums or universities would almost always accept them for educational/display purposes.
Of course there is always the high explosives option, like that beached whale in, was it California or Oregon?
Wow, just like Poltergeist! I have this vision of ghostly sea creatures drifting though the darkened halls after business hours.
“Swim to the light, Shamu. Swim to the light!”
Couldn’t find a current link to this one:
"Zookeepers find muskrats delectable
COPENHAGEN (Reuters) - Danish zookeepers slaughtered animals in their care, including more than 50 muskrats, and served the meat to unsuspecting friends and family until zoos changed their rules, newspaper Ekstra Bladet reported Friday.
“A single muskrat serves up to four people. You just have to avoid saying what it is before your family has eaten it because it sounds disgusting,” elephant keeper Peter Jensen was quoted as saying.
Nobody at Copenhagen Zoo, home to 3,300 animals and 264 species, was available for comment.
The zookeepers also feasted on antelope and gaur, the newspaper said.
“It’s always a success when you can serve you friends something special,” zookeeper Nikolai Rhod said, adding he had also eaten rabbits, pigs and chicken from the petting zoo.
Zookeepers in Denmark used to slaughter animals for meat until a zoo crackdown last year under which anyone caught doing so would face disciplinary action. Such practices did not break Danish law. "
Zoo animals are not fed other zoo animals that have died. At least not here in Alabama.
Upon death, the zoo keepers will perform a necropsy, if needed, to ascertain the cause of death. If death is from a contagion, the animal is handled as medical or infectious waste and either incinerated (in a Medical Waste Incinerator) or steam sterilized. If not contagious, small animals may be sent to the local Municipal Waste Landfill for disposal, but most dead animals are sold to rendering plants.
Oregon, as told in Dave Barry’s “Moby Yuck” column. Here’s the video:
http://www.coasters.net/~russell/humour/exploding-whale.qt
(Large QT file)
Around here the animals are rendered. These days my husband is the maintenance manager for such a rendering plant. His plant deals mainly with restaurant grease, but they do get the occasional exotic zoo animal; plus dead horses; large roadkill (deers mainly); truckloads of out-of-date (or otherwise condemned) food, e.g. lobsters, soup, chickens; and also things like pigs that medical students have practiced on. It’s quite a profitable business: they are paid to take the animals/grease/what have you, they can use part of the product to run the plant, and the rest of the product is sold for profit.
By the way, his plant does not do pets. I think there was a public outcry about that several years before he joined.
My ex used to volunteer at our local zoo, and here’s what she was told.
Necropsies are routinely performed on the larger and rarer exhibit animals, but for the more run-of-the-mill species, only when the cause of death is questionable.
The remains of some exhibit animals are sorted out for different purposes. The skin/hide might be sent to a taxidermist, for example. The skeleton might be donated to a museum. Pieces might also be kept by the zoo as “biofacts”. Our zoo, for example, had pieces of hide from different animals that were used as hand-on exhibits, along with skulls, claws, teeth, etc. Internal organs and other disposables might be cremated, but might also be frozen and sent to interested parties for research purposes.
Full, intact burial is (I suspect) pretty rare and only done in the case of the true showcase animals. The star attraction of our zoo was a female African elephant who had been there for almost 50 years. She was buried at the zoo, but that was the first and only time it had ever been done.
From this Something Awful Goldmine of a few years ago, page 3:
The article is quite funny and worth the read.
There are tissue digestors that will chemically break down carcasses and other stuff (including pathogens, prions, etc.) into a liquid waste stream and a small pile of powder. The one our company is considering only holds up to 500 lbs at a time though.