Yes, that's loverly. Perhaps they do it so that the readers will have more sympathy for whoever has to clean up the owl room at Hogwarts.
Actually, I had a pet Great Horned Owl when I was a kid. She (actually, now that I know more about owls, I suspect it was a "he"--he was relatively small) had fallen into the street one winter and my dad (ever the collector of odd creatures. Ahem. No comments from *you*, Cassandra...) brought her home. She had a broken wing, we didn't know wildlife rehab *existed*, so Tyl lived with us for five years and loved me to pieces. She was the coolest. And I watched her york up many a bone-filled pellet. She got this happy, serene look on her face, clicked her bill a few times, and then...BWOLMP! *splat!*
'Course I already knew what was in them, so I didn't bother to dissect them.
Hey, capitalism isn't the problem. It's idiots who buy the stuff who are the problem. And as someone else has already said: If you don't buy it, it will go away.