Rabbits used for heating fuel in Sweden, why not U.S.?

This is no joke.  Thousands of rabbits that are shot and killed in Stockholm's Kungsholmen parks and neighborhoods are being used to fuel a heating plant in central Sweden.  The animals cadavers are warming the homes of Swedes.

Every year, thousands of rabbits are killed in order to protect trees and shrubbery in the city's parks and green space. Some of them were once pets that were left to scavenger for themselves. As is well known, they reproduce at an amazing rate.

Sweden's Society for the Protection of Wild Rabbits protests that there should be a more humane way of handling the propagation of the rabbits and that they should not be killed and turned into an fuel-supplying industry.

The city usual steps up its rabbit hunting efforts in the autumn.  It is one way of controlling the size of the rabbit population. In 2008, instead of just disposing of the dead rabbits, they were frozen and later transported to a special heating plant where their bodies are incinerated and become fuel.

It is not only rabbits that are used for fuel in Sweden because any animal carcass can be processed.  These include dead cats, deer, horses and cows and by-products from slaughterhouses and primary agriculture. The result is biodiesel and bio fuel oil.

Is using cadavers of animals as fuel instead of them being thrown into landfills a good idea for the U.S. as the price of heating oil is expected to skyrocket under Cap and Trade?

Sources:

http://www.thelocal.se/22610/20091012/

http://www.spiegel.de/international/zeitgeist/0,1518,druck-654916,00.html

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