Do you own a pet dog or cat at home? What do you feed them? If your answer is pet food, then you need to do a little rethinking.
Cattle feed and pet meals are a curse to the rainforest ecosystem.
How is this? Palm oil, as we know, is an essential ingredient in the food industry and is extracted from the fruit of the palm tree. Palm fruits have a nut-like centre called kernel that is rich in protein. These protein-rich kernels appear as by-products and are chopped and mashed up to make palm-kernel cakes, a chief ingredient used in pet food.
Oil palms of the rainforests are homes for the orang-utans. Massive logging of oil palms to boost the palm oil sector has led to the annihilation of these poor tree-dwellers!
According to the IUCN, the total number of orang-utans has declined to its half over the past ten years. Today, the Sumatran orang-utans have been labelled as critically endangered and the Bornean orang-utans as endangered.
A recent surge in awareness of the issue has prompted several palm oil companies to develop more sustainable technologies in the palm oil manufacturing process. It has also ensured better conservation of these natural habitats. However, efforts in realizing the same approach in the pet kernel meal sector are not successful. Hence, the problem remains a grave issue.
So, it is up to you to make sure that the smile on your pet’s face is not the cry of a poor orang-utan!
Picture Credit : Google
