Plastic menace: Cow operated upon, whopping 80-kg polythene removed
A team of veterinary surgeons in Patna removed a whopping 80-kg mass of plastic from a 6-year-old cow's stomach on Wednesday, highlighting the need for strict action to curb plastic menace. Dr. GD Singh, assistant professor of Bihar Animal Sciences University and his team conducted a three hour surgery to remove the load of plastics that had thickness of around 4 microns. Here's more.
Next 10 days critical for the operated cow
Dr Singh said that the animal has been discharged. "But in such condition, the next 10 days are very critical as the rumen microflora becomes inactive, creating loss of appetite," added Singh. Dipak Kumar, owner of a cowshed, brought the cow to the doctors after it had stopped eating altogether. This is, however, not the first case of animal surgery due to plastic eating.
Not the first such case
In September 2016, a team of veterinary doctors were stunned to find 100-kg of waste that included polythene bags, nails, socks in a cow's stomach. According to the doctors at the NGO Jivdaya Charitable Trust, where the cow was brought in from Sabarmati, she was pregnant and was unable to walk during diagnosis. The garbage removed from the stomach filled three buckets.
Do animals eat plastic or plastic eats animals?
Karuna Society for Animals and Welfare runs a project called The Plastic Cow Project. They had filed a case in the SC to which the court responded in July'16, demanding a total ban on plastics. Not just cows, even turtles, pigs (being scavengers) die horribly due to plastic intake. Even last month, an elephant died in Sabarimala after eating plastic, strewn over by tourists.
