When I was a child, we called the dead wagon to pick up any cow that didn’t make it. We got $10 for the animal. I tried to hang around when the renderer came, in case my father was feeling generous enough to hand me the money once it was pulled out of the driver’s pocket. When I was a teenager, the dead wagon stopped paying. Cranking the bloated Holstein onto the bed of the truck and taking it away was the compensation we received for whatever fertilizer or pet food they were going to make from it.
In my 20s, the renderer started charging $10 to pick up cows. We stopped calling the dead wagon.
Although it may not have been entirely legal, we buried our expired cattle on the edge of fields and pastures. We did our best to move around enough dirt with a tractor bucket to make sure the bodies weren’t exposed. However, as any zombie enthusiasts will tell you, the dead have a tendency to rise. Often, parts of the animal would be dug up by local wildlife and its bones spread around the hedgerows. Sometimes our dog would bring back a skull and leave it on our porch, making visitors hesitant to knock.
Despite the macabre details of our disposal method, we reasoned it this way: In allowing nature to take its course, we were giving back to the ecosystem. If the coyotes were healthy and strong, maybe they’d get more woodchucks and we’d have fewer holes in the field, saving wear on our machinery. Or so the logic went.
In Nepal, something similar is now happening. Before 2006, it was common to use the painkiller diclofenac for livestock in that part of the world. While effective for cattle, diclofenac is poisonous for birds. As a result, the vulture population has nearly been wiped out in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal, as a few bites of a carcass of an animal with diclofenac can cause them to have kidney failure. In particular, the white-rumped vulture went from being one of the most prevalent raptors in the world to almost being extinct. Despite its ban, carrion-eaters continue to be under threat due to continued black market sales of the drug.
In order to save the birds, The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds (RSPB), Bird Conservation Nepal (BCN) and Renewable World have teamed up to create “cow retirement communities.” Farmers are paid for unproductive or elderly cattle, who then live out the rest of their lives in a conservation area. When they die, the vultures get access to their clean, drug-free carcasses. These animal shelters are built to be eco-friendly and are meant to eventually provide income streams from biogas or the production of compost.
The goal of the project is to benefit both people and wildlife simultaneously, reducing poverty in rural areas of Nepal while fostering a comeback for the vulture population. In 2021, the first official “Vulture Safe Zone” was declared, replete with sustainable shelters, and with additional support from the Darwin Initiative, a second zone is proposed to be established in Shuklaphanta National Park, in the west part of Nepal. This phase of the project looks to benefit local farmers in other ways as well, such as providing solar-powered milk coolers, neutering programs to reduce the number of stray dogs bothering cattle and running awareness campaigns on which drugs are vulture-safe.
Perhaps even more importantly, cow shelters help address a significant problem in Nepal: stray cattle. Being a Hindu-majority country, cattle are considered sacred and it is illegal to cull them. In fact, killing a cow carries a penalty of up to three years in prison. As a result, there are many stray cattle that roam both the countryside and urban areas. The expenditure in trying to manage cattle abandoned for not being productive is a burden on local and national governments, as well as farmers whose crops are damaged by feral herds. Hence, there was an appetite to maintain cattle in prescribed areas and let the vultures take care of the remains.
As we start a new year, it doesn’t hurt to find news stories that highlight something going right in the world. The cow retirement centers in Nepal are an example in which both people and wildlife can mutually benefit, and in which conservation can be an economic boon. Personally, I’m glad to see nature’s dead wagon back in action again, and even making the farmer a little pocket cash.
