for cattle and other animals says pinto almeida agrees there may be lot of such cases where animals must be dying without any help reaching them or their deaths may not get reported a few years ago around 40 cattle heads had been rounded up after a drive to impound stray animals when they were taken to a cow shelter at usgao all of them died within a few days postmortems revealed they had ingested lots of plastic a source told toi the animal rescuers are not sure how many wild animals may be suffering from toxic waste they may be rummaging in the garbage in areas near forests as a lot of toxic waste and sharp objects such as glass bottles blades and pins are often flung around bins says a garbage manager strays their food source it is being noticed that stray animals are now surviving on food in waste when we started doortodoor collection in penha de franca around 30 stray dogs would surround the labourer collecting the waste as they were being deprived of their food a source said stray animals are also being forced to consume unnatural food the shrinking of grazing grounds has left the cattle stranded around garbage heaps many of them can be seen ambling towards dumps at night a garbage researcher pradip sarmokadam suggests that the setting up of cow or animal shelters near garbage treatment units can have many spinoffs people offering food to animals as part of religious rituals can drop the food at these shelters waste in the form of green material and food wastes duly tested to check for contamination can be easily passed on to these animals sarmokadam says this can reduce the quantum of waste to be processed and contain the menace of stray animals too he concludes