With the world population at 6 billion and counting, the number of domesticated animals raised to meet our needs runs into the hundreds of billions. The average American eats about 250 eggs a year, without a thought for what will happen to the hens that produced them. In the wild, animal carcasses are efficiently broken down by scavengers, bacteria and the elements. This continues today, on a massive scale. Today, there are many other ways in which we maximize benefit from these by-products.
Hides become clothing, feathers become quilts, bones become glue.
And muscle and internal organs become feed for carnivorous livestock in zoos, circuses, marine parks, fish and fur farms. Mink consume over 20 times their body weight annually, foxes consume 35 times their body weight. In turn, these mink and fox, domesticated carnivores raised on hundreds of farms in over 30 US states, produce a biodegradable clothing product, fine oils and organic fertilizers for crops. Nothing is wasted. On this particular day, Holt leads the tour group past loading docks filled with trucks delivering fishmeal, liver, poultry and expired cheeses from as far away as Alaska, Texas and Wisconsin.