Pet scanner helps out in difficult situations
Life for those who work to keep the city clean isn’t always pleasant, but the council's Street Scene staff are trying to do their best in a difficult situation.
One of the unpleasant tasks they have to deal with all too often is recovering from the city’s roads the bodies of beloved household pets who have been hit by cars.
Viewers of television's Grimebusters show during the summer will have seen dedicated Street Scene team member Lew Carrington trawling the lost and found columns of the Express and Star to try and alert pet owners to the demise of their beloved animals.
But the team has now invested in a hand-held scanner which can read the microchip details of domestic animals recovered from the roads.
Head of Street Scene Services Steve Woodward said: “The scanner will help us to easily identify owners so that we can contact them. For many people a pet becomes part of the family so it is important that they are able to make their own arrangements for giving it a fitting send-off.”
The council will continue to arrange for the cremation of dead animals – both domestic and wild – collected from the streets, if they are not claimed by their owners following a period of time.
Between April 2007 and March 2008 the team collected a total of 176 dead animals, both domestic and wild.
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