Interstate Transportation

To support systems that will facilitate the transportation of a pet’s remains from one state to another for an earth burial back home.

Need

If you ever travel with your pet, or if you move away from “home” and your pet dies, how will you transport your pet’s body should you want a burial back home? In the U.S., homeland security prohibits air transportation unless arranged through a licensed shipper. But what shipper will help you?

Actions

We seek to identify and encourage one entity (e.g., pet cemetery, veterinary practice, crematory, or mortuary, pet transporter) in every state to be licensed as a shipper that can legally ship the body of a deceased pet by air transport, whenever the need arises.

UPDATE (May 22, 2012) - we identified two local shippers, along with Animal Transporters, which can arrange for pick-up from and delivery to any city in the U.S.

Models

• Pet Heaven Memorial Park in Miami, FL; they have an arrangement with United Airlines. All preparations are performed in their Miami facility, and can ship anywhere in the continental U.S. and Puerto Rico.
• Pet Taxi LA in Los Angeles, CA. They have an arrangement with United Airlines.
• Animal Transporters. Although based in Los Angeles, they work with handlers nationwide and can arrange the shipment from and to any city in the U.S. via United Airlines.

The Environmental Impact of Transportation

This objective may seem to contradict the goals of green burial – to be environmentally sound, we would all be buried near where we die in order to minimize the environmental cost of fuel and packing materials used in shipping the body. Some might also state that the money for transportation could be spent in more ecological ways.

There is another context: bereavement. The primary reason why we bury our loved ones is to honor them and to care for ourselves – our fragile minds and broken hearts – during intense periods of grief. An earth burial can facilitate healing, but advocacy for green burials must never sacrifice our compassion, empathy or humanity to a sterile environmentalism.

Since companion animals are less likely to travel with their families, they will most likely die at or near home. It will be a relatively rare occurrence when a family seeks to ship a body from one state to another. Yet when that need exists, the compounded grief from not being able to bring a loved one home can be immense. This objective seeks to provide bereaved families with an established transportation system that may ease their pain at such difficult times.

updated May 25, 2012