Dead pet scanning not viable, say Perth and Kinross Council

Oct 22 2010 by Denis Brown, Perthshire Advertiser Friday

ROAD-KILLED pets will continue to be swiftly dispatched to municipal landfill sites.

Implementing a new policy of scanning dead felines – or dogs – for microchips containing owner contact details is not viable, mainly for financial reasons, Perth and Kinross Council (PKC) told the PA.

Since October 1, Perth Cats Protection (PCP) has been microchipping all re-homed felines and its UK head office lobbying local authorities to introduce scanning of all dead pets.

The idea is that rather than dumping corpses, councils could trace worried owners and hand over bodies for burial, providing closure for most who never find out what happened to their missing pets.

As previously reported, Perth mum, Vicky Rylance, a Cats Protection volunteer, is a vocal supporter of the push to convince PKC to implement a dead pet scanning policy.

In February her cat, Boots, went missing and had it not been for a tip-off from a man who saw a PKC worker remove a dead cat fitting her puss’s description from Edinburgh Road, she would have been none the wiser.

“I was totally devastated and, frankly, disgusted to find that his body was put into general waste and sent to landfill,” she said.

Ms Rylance said she had assumed that in a worst-case scenario, PKC staff would have scanned Boots – who was microchipped – and contact her, but was dismayed to discover no such policy existed for cats or dogs.

“We didn’t get the chance to say goodbye to him,” she said.

“The thought of Boots lying there in a landfill site makes me feel quite sick.”

PCP volunteer, Fiona Morrison, said discovering a missing pet had been run over was traumatic but not knowing its’ fate was much worse.

She said with PCP now microchipping every cat – a practice vets recommended to all cat owners – the number of traceable felines, dead or alive, would continue to grow.

“The council’s environmental health department is responsible for picking up dead cats off the road and they keep a record and description of each one, so why not scan them as well,” she said.

“If their issue is they don’t have enough scanners, then we can provide them with some.”

A PKC spokesman said the issue was not about owning a scanner, but ferrying dead animals to the location where the scanner was, or vice versa, because of the vast area staff covered.

“Unfortunately this is simply not practical or defensible in monetary terms, especially at a time when the council is facing serious financial constraints,” he said.

“Organising the transport, scanning, and storage of dead animals would place additional demands and financial pressures on services.

“For these reasons we are not considering changing our policy on this issue at this time.”

In the past 12 months, PKC had received more than 160 calls about carcasses on roads – mainly wild animals – with 25 people requesting removal of dead cats and three about dog bodies.

The spokesman said PKC’s policy was to remove dead pets asap, as most had been squashed and the sight caused distress to animal lovers and people in general.

“Wherever possible we log all dead domestic animals we find, recording distinguishing marks and where they are found with collars, retaining these for identification purposes should an owner come forward,” he said.