Katrina Animals Pets ~ September 20, 2005

The Katrina Animal Rescue Resources webpage remains current. Posts for Katrina Animals Pets News from September 19 to August 28, 2005 are below today's post.

Note: The Katrina Animals Pets posts on this blog are mainly focused on larger or national animal rescue group efforts along with the local animal groups in Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas. There are many local efforts of animal groups across the nation. Check your local newspapers and media outlets or ask your local animal groups.

As before, I direct you to:
Katrina National Animal Rescue Groups - Katrina Animal Action Daily Updates: [such as they are!!!]

* Noah’s Wish
* UAN/EARS
* HSUS
* Best Friends
* ASPCA
* AHA
* Katrina.Petfinder.org
* Animal Emergency Response Network (Petfinder.com database)

See also Animal Rescue Resources on Katrina Help Wiki
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Katrina Animals Pets Issues

Petfinder Update: Tuesday, 20 September 2005, 10:00 am EST
[Excerpts]
HOORAY for the Marin Humane Society for their family friendly policy to keep Katrina pets in foster homes until Dec 31 to give the pets plenty of time to be reunited with their families
Workers at Lamar Dixon inform us there are close to 4000 records waiting to be entered into the Animal Emergency Rescue Network. These are the records of the animals at the facility as well as those who have been transported to other facilities. Those responsible for the data entry hope it will be complete at the end of this week. Each day there will be more data, so please keep checking if you have lost your pet.
Several well-meaning organizations have rescued many animals, but did not process them through the Louisiana SPCA or Lamar-Dixon. There is no record of those animals. Please encourage all humane organizations in your area that have returned with Katrina animal victims to register their charges with disaster.petfinder.org. This will give the owners a chance to find their pet BEFORE any adoptions take place. The primary goal should be reuniting not adopting. Again, please encourage all organizations to seek reuniting BEFORE adoption. Have all Katrina animal victims registered at disaster.petfinder.org

Updates of Current Animal Welfare Rescue Efforts:
Tuesday, 20 September 2005, 10:00 am EST
These organizations, among others, transferred animals from Lamar-Dixon this past weekend:
Arizona Humane Society in Phoenix; 190 animals were flown there on Saturday.
SPCA of Texas in McKinney; 50 dogs arrived Saturday; staff met the transfer van at 3 a.m. to unload, water and feed the animals.
Kittico Cat Rescue in Dallas; 101 cats are headed to Dallas. Kittico originally intended to transfer 100 felines but added one more cat when they learned the animal's owner is in Dallas. A purr-fect reunion is in the works.

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Pet shelter deadlines at LSU
KATC, LA
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) _ The Hurricane Katrina pet shelter at Louisiana State University won't accept new animals after Sept. 30, and will close Oct. ...

AGRICULTURE DEPARTMENT RELEASES GUIDELINES FOR HANDLING ANIMALS ...
Illinois Department of Agriculture (press release), IL
... guidelines for individuals, animal rescue organizations, humane societies and shelters who are taking in animals displaced by Hurricane Katrina to follow in ...

Oregon National Guard soldiers return from Gulf Coast
Katu.com, OR
... from the grime, crime and foul odors of the areas ravaged by Hurricane Katrina. ... The soldiers were instructed not to attempt to help the animals in order to ...
Specialist Ashley Harris said she was not prepared for the smell, which reminded her of a "giant sewer", or the large numbers of stranded and stray dogs.
The soldiers were instructed not to attempt to help the animals in order to minimize the chances of spreading disease.

Portland Couple Helps Rescue Pets After Hurricane
KOIN.com, OR
... Hurricane Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, a Portland couple is back home from the region. They went there to rescue and give shelter to hundreds of animals ...

Hurricane Rita Threatens Lives of Thousands of Homeless Animals Held in Unsafe Staging Areas Along Gulf Coast in Wake of Katrina
PR Newswire (press release), NY
As Hurricane Rita approaches the Gulf Coast, North Shore Animal League America, the world's largest no-kill pet adoption organization, is calling on the United States Government to take "immediate action" to evacuate the thousands of homeless animals which are being held in unsafe staging areas in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. The League's lead veterinarian, Dr. Eve Ognibene, who has been on location for several weeks managing emergency rescue efforts, warns that Hurricane Rita could have devastating consequences for the thousands of helpless animals who are already struggling to survive in the extremely dangerous conditions that exist in the animal staging areas along the Gulf Coast.

PETA OFFERS URGENT INFORMATION FOR SAFEGUARDING ANIMALS DURING TROPICAL STORM (Rita)
Group Warns Against Repeating Deadly Mistakes Made During Katrina
PETA (press release), VA
... IMPORTANT NOTE: The government failed the animals in zones affected by Hurricane Katrina. People in the stricken areas didn’t ...

PETA RESCUE TEAM ARRIVES IN RICHMOND WITH 32 CANINE SURVIVORS OF ...
PETA (press release), VA
Members of one of PETA’s Hurricane Katrina animal rescue teams will be ... Jason Baker, Hayden Fowler, and Linda Tyrrell are bringing the animals to Hampton Roads ...
The 32 dogs?who have all been microchipped for tracking and identification purposes?have all had preliminary veterinary exams and will be placed in temporary foster care. PETA staff will be in constant contact with volunteers in New Orleans in order to try to reunite the animals with their families. PETA is hoping that unclaimed dogs?who run the gamut from purebreds to mutts?will find good homes in Hampton Roads.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
The Humane Society of the United States Provides Grant of $100,000 to Help Animals at Louisiana State University Coliseum
GONZALES, La. (September 19, 2005) - The Humane Society of the United States today announced a grant of $100,000 to support the emergency animal shelter operated in Baton Rouge by the Louisiana State University School of Veterinary Medicine and the Louisiana Veterinary Medical Association. The shelter, located in the LSU AgCenter’s John M. Parker Coliseum in Baton Rouge, has taken in over 1,000 animals displaced by Hurricane Katrina, and has helped to facilitate the fostering of owned animals. These animals are temporarily placed at the facility by their owners and are expected to be reclaimed.
Announcing the grant, HSUS President and CEO Wayne Pacelle said, "The response of the veterinarians and volunteers who organized this shelter on a moment’s notice has given hope to evacuees who had to relinquish their pets when Katrina struck. LSU has filled a crucial need in a desperate moment."
Since the Parker Coliseum shelter opened on August 31, veterinarians, technicians, students, and volunteers from across the United States and from Canada have kept it running even as the facility quickly reached full capacity. During the first 48 hours of operation, over 500 animals came in.
By Friday, September 16, the shelter was home to 907 companion animals (553 dogs, 323 cats, and varying numbers of pigs, rabbits, guinea pigs, ferrets, hamsters, gerbils, mice, tortoises and birds). The shelter reached peak capacity on September 12, with 1,287 animals in residence.
"We are enormously grateful to The Humane Society of the United States for helping us during our time of great need," said Dr. Michael Groves, dean of the LSU School of Veterinary Medicine. "We will use this money to house, feed, and treat animals under our care, and we hope to reunite these animals with their owners."
The HSUS, in cooperation with the Louisiana SPCA, the ASPCA, and other organizations, are overseeing a larger operation at the Lamar-Dixon Expo Center in Gonzales, Louisiana. There, HSUS Disaster Animal Response Team (DART) members are conducting full-scale search and rescue operations in New Orleans and surrounding parishes. Teams are also setting out food and water in all accessible parts of the city.
Animal care and control professionals are sheltering nearly 2,000 rescued animals at Lamar-Dixon, and hundreds each day are being transported to local humane societies in Louisiana and outside of the state, in order to create more room for rescued animals brought back to the site each day by field teams. More than 350 animals at the site have been reclaimed by their owners.

Animal Animal Protection Organizations Establish Reconstruction Fund for Animal Shelters Devastated By Hurricane Katrina
PR Newswire (press release), NY
Tuesday September 20, 2:53 pm ET
WASHINGTON and NEW YORK, Sept. 20 /PRNewswire/ -- The Humane Society of the United States and the ASPCA® (American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals®) today announced the creation of a reconstruction fund to rebuild animal welfare organizations damaged or destroyed by Hurricane Katrina.
The ASPCA and HSUS are each donating an initial $2.5 million, for a total of $5 million, which will be used to reconstruct animal shelters that were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina and to restore the capacity of animal protection work in the region. They are seeking total funding of $10 - $15 million for shelter reconstruction, and will begin appealing immediately to pet-friendly corporations, the government, and other sources to attain the financial goal.
"The amount of devastation in the affected region is unprecedented and the public has been extremely generous in donating to animal welfare disaster relief funds," said Edwin Sayres, president and CEO of the ASPCA. "Once the rescue and recovery efforts have been completed, it will take months, if not years to restore the organizations."
"The destruction of several humane societies in the Gulf region is an immediate and long-term threat to the well-being of animals in large portions of Louisiana and Mississippi," says Wayne Pacelle, HSUS president and CEO. "It is critical that we rebuild the humane infrastructure to provide the tools for animal care in communities on the Gulf coast."
Disaster response teams from The HSUS, ASPCA, and other organizations have been on the ground in the affected regions of Louisiana and Mississippi since August 29th and will continue to rescue pets and other animal victims of the hurricane. Temporary sheltering operations -- which are now among the largest de facto animal shelters in the country -- are set up at the Lamar-Dixon Expo Center in Gonzales, LA, and in Hattiesburg, MS. Hundreds of volunteers along with animal welfare professionals are assisting with rescue and relief efforts and the operation of emergency animal shelters. Persons looking for a lost or displaced pet should go to http://disaster.petfinder.com/emergency or visit the shelters at Gonzales and Hattiesburg to look for their pets.
Among the facilities destroyed are the Louisiana SPCA in New Orleans and the Humane Society of South Mississippi, located in Gulfport, MS. Before the hurricane struck, LA-SPCA shelter staff evacuated their animals to the Houston SPCA. The LA-SPCA provides care and basic medical services for approximately 11,000 homeless and unwanted animals each year.
Before the disaster, the Humane Society of South Mississippi sheltered 15,000 animals per year and provided a full-service medical clinic. According to the society's web site, its building took on four feet of water and all of its vehicles were destroyed by the hurricane. On September 2, a disaster animal response team helped the Mississippi shelter evacuate more than 130 animals.
In the coming months, The HSUS and the ASPCA will evaluate the needs of the affected communities. The groups will also reach out to corporate partners to leverage their initial gifts.

Animal rescuers need local volunteers
Daily Comet, Thibodeaux, LA
The Pasado Safe Haven group is in great need of local volunteers.
The group, which as set up a facility at the property of Louis St. Martin in Raceland, is focused on saving pets in the New Orleans area that have been lost or abandoned because of Hurricane Katrina.
Volunteers are needed to help care for and feed the animals once they are brought to the Raceland facility until they can be adopted or relocated. People are needed at all hours of the day, so scheduling times volunteer is easy and convenient.
All volunteer work would be done in Raceland at the Pasado Safe Haven facility.
Contact Kim Sgro at 425-283-8307 to volunteer.

LATE START ON PET RESCUE
Katrina Blog MSNBC.com

TheHorse.com Database Aids In Cat Rescue
TheHorse.com, KY

... sustained little flooding. Alladio said her team had helped more than 60 animals during Hurricane Katrina. Alladio offered the following ...

LSU Hurricane Equine Rescue Operation (HERO)
TheHorse.com, KY
... Plaquemines Parishes to help care for the horses and other animals. The best way to assist the Louisiana Horse Victims of Hurricane Katrina (rescue, recovery ...

Animal Rescue--Two Weeks in Mississippi
TheHorse.com, KY
... home from Mississippi to South Carolina with Gimenez as a happy example of one of the many stories of animals saved in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. ...

Rescued Cats [Cat's Cradle]
WRIC, VA
30 cats that were trapped by the winds and water of Hurricane Katrina are now ... the people have endured, and if you can double that for the animals...because we ...

Decision on mandatory evacuation expected today
KHOU (subscription), TX
... City officials announced Monday that people could bring their pets on city buses as they evacuated. The animals need to be in cages. ...

Hurricane victim’s hasty note reunites dog, owner
Santa Cruz Sentinel, CA - 1 hour ago... brought smiles in what could have been another sad story of Hurricane Katrina. ... It doesn’t normally house animals at its facility; they usually are housed by ...

Scientists lose track of four aquarium dolphins washed into Gulf ...
KATC, LA
... trained dolphins that spilled from their Gulfport aquarium tank into the Gulf of Mexico during Hurricane Katrina. Scientists are concerned the animals may not ...

Scientists hunt dolphins spilled from aquarium
Jackson Clarion Ledger, MS
... the last four trained dolphins that spilled from their Gulfport aquarium tank into the Gulf of Mexico during Hurricane Katrina, concerned the animals may not ...

Seabees Provide Home for Dolphins Displaced During Katrina
Military.com
... displaced when a reported 40-foot storm surge caused by Hurricane Katrina destroyed their ... Our role is to provide and maintain a place for these animals to live ...

Animals from hurricane-affected areas arrive at LAX
KESQ, CA
... Katrina have arrived in Los Angeles. The planeload of cats and dogs arrived Monday night at Los Angeles International Airport. SPCA LA says the animals will be ...

'No pets' policy is traumatic
Athens Banner-Herald (subscription), GA
... and consistent with Louisiana law, which correctly regards abandoning animals as an ... with animal organizations but apparently abandoned in the wake of Katrina. ...

Katrina animal victims arrive
Whittier Daily News, CA
About 150 animals displaced by Hurricane Katrina arrived at Los Angeles International Airport Monday night, a landing for which ani mal rescue workers from ...

A dog and owner reunite after the storm
Daily Press, VA
... She volunteered for about 10 days in Slidell with Noah's Wish, a nonprofit group that has rescued more than 640 animals stranded by Katrina. ...

Evacuee heading back to New Orleans to find cat
The State, SC
Bill Hicks, a survivor of Hurricane Katrina who has settled in Columbia, will return ... La., about 30 miles from Baton Rouge, where thousands of animals are being ...

Disaster is a nightmare come to life for Katrina animals
Greenville Daily Reflector, NC
By Greg Eans, The Daily Reflector
Dispatched to Monroe to relieve one of her teammates and take charge as incident commander, she is running an animal shelter in the Monroe Civic Center. It is a temporary home for animals with known owners who have been displaced by the storm. These pets are housed along with animals pulled from the floodwaters who may or may not have an owner.
At her disposal is a team of trained volunteers throughout the country that can respond to a disaster within 24 hours. Tyson and volunteers already in Monroe have set up shop and will care for the animals while searching for their owners. She will stay until the job is complete, two weeks on, and two weeks off.
Many animals at the shelter were brought in by their owners before the storm. Now, they come by daily to walk and visit, sharing their stories with other evacuees. Sometimes they sit in the pens with their dogs, for hours.
If she were keeping score, Tyson, the Mid-Atlantic regional director of the United Animal Nations Emergency Rescue Services, or EARS, would rank last week an all-time high, as well as an all-time low, on the same page in that journal.
In Monroe, she operates a top-notch shelter, one that eases the minds of those whose homes were destroyed and are looking for a safe place for their pets. She does not take part in the rescue element of EARS.
Tyson is concerned for the animals in the grocery store parking lots. She, with help from the Monroe Bayou Kennel Club, has secured a new location for the shelter: farmland on the outskirts of town. On Friday, they began moving.
Once there, they will focus on helping those animals waiting for shelter and reuniting them with their owners.
When a disaster occurs, emotions are sensitive and tensions flare up. Tyson must cope with these realities, but somehow stay cool, and keep her intense feelings at bay to focus on the exhausting, seemingly endless, tasks at hand.
By week's end, Tyson and her crew of volunteers will have moved the existing shelter at the Monroe Civic Center to its new location. There, they will begin receiving animals with critical needs. They will have the capacity to shelter 300 dogs. While the strain clearly will be great, Tyson will get them through it, one more time.

Katrina Animals Pets ~ September 19, 2005

The Katrina Animal Rescue Resources webpage remains current. Posts for Katrina Animals Pets News from September 18 to August 28, 2005 are below today's post.

Note: The Katrina Animals Pets posts on this blog are mainly focused on larger or national animal rescue group efforts along with the local animal groups in Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas. There are many local efforts of animal groups across the nation. Check your local newspapers and media outlets or ask your local animal groups.

As before, I direct you to:
Katrina National Animal Rescue Groups - Katrina Animal Action Daily Updates: [such as they are!!!]

* Noah’s Wish
* UAN/EARS
* HSUS
* Best Friends
* ASPCA
* AHA
* Katrina.Petfinder.org
* Animal Emergency Response Network (Petfinder.com database)

See also Animal Rescue Resources on Katrina Help Wiki
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Katrina Animals Pets Issues

Heartening to see so many care about rescuing animals
Ventura County Star (subscription), CA
... a Louisiana animal welfare group right after Katrina struck: "During a time of disaster, such as the destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina, animals and pets ...

After the storm, donations pour in
Newsday, NY
... Far ahead of the pack in the Katrina disaster is the American Red Cross, which ... Humane Society of the United States has taken in $16 million to rescue animals. ...

Humane Society gets a new home
Ocala.com, FL
Old facility will be used for rescued hurricane animals
The Humane Society of Marion County has moved to a new location closer to downtown Ocala.
Now that the old facility is vacant, the Humane Society is allowing Endangered Animal Rescue Sanctuary to use it for dogs and cats rescued from hurricane-stricken areas.

THREE-STAR CELEBRITY
[Excerpt]
Honore, who turned 58 Thursday, and his wife, Beverly, have four children. Oldest son Michael, 29, is an Army sergeant who recently was serving in Baghdad, Iraq. Their youngest child, Stephen, is 15.His oldest daughter, Stephanie, lives in Florida, where she recently gave birth to Honore's first grandson. His other daughter, Kimberly, lives in Kenner. She evacuated to Stephanie's home in St. Petersburg when Hurricane Katrina hit. But, like many evacuees, she left behind her pets.She e-mailed her father daily to rescue her cat, Gumbo, and hamster, Hammie. After 10 days in the city, Honore finally accomplished the search-and-rescue mission."I've got 80 helicopters in the air and we're trying to evacuate 20,000 people from the Convention Center, and she's e-mailing me every day about her cat," Honore said.A man of duty, the general followed orders. He made the trek to Jefferson Parish."The good news is they were OK," Honore said. "The cat was living large in that place."

Duo risks busts, bites to save pets
New York Daily News, NY
... When New Orleans was first evacuated, most residents who left assumed they would be home again within a day or two and left their pets behind. ...

Agencies try to help thousands of displaced Gulf Coast pets
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, MO
... doleful set of numbers: While some owners are tracking down their lost animals and joyfully reclaiming them, even more families are surrendering pets they no ...
In two weeks of traveling through Louisiana and Mississippi with the rescue trailer, the Humane Society of Missouri team alone has accounted for 1,000 rescues in the stricken area.

Katrina Animals Pets ~ September 18, 2005

The Katrina Animal Rescue Resources webpage remains current. Posts for Katrina Animals Pets News from September 17 to August 28, 2005 are below today's post.

Note: The Katrina Animals Pets posts on this blog are mainly focused on larger or national animal rescue group efforts along with the local animal groups in Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas. There are many local efforts of animal groups across the nation. Check your local newspapers and media outlets or ask your local animal groups.

As before, I direct you to:
Katrina National Animal Rescue Groups - Katrina Animal Action Daily Updates: [such as they are!!!]

* Noah’s Wish
* UAN/EARS
* HSUS
* Best Friends
* ASPCA
* AHA
* Katrina.Petfinder.org
* Animal Emergency Response Network (Petfinder.com database)

See also Animal Rescue Resources on Katrina Help Wiki
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Katrina Animals Pets Issues

Katrina Disaster Animal Rescue Update: [press release]
PrimeZone via Yahoo! Finance
Noah's Wish, a not-for-profit organization that works exclusively to rescue and shelter animals in disasters, is caring for 642 rescued animals at a temporary shelter in Slidell, Louisiana.

Animal lovers flock to Houma to aid displaced pets
The Daily Comet
RACELAND -- With the efficiency of a search-and-rescue team, animal lifesavers from several states have spent weeks scouting for pets left behind after Hurricane Katrina and relocate them to safety.
Mark Steinway, co-founder of Pasado’s Safe Haven in Seattle, is now camped at the barn along with a horde of volunteers dedicated to saving as many pets as they can, and eventually find the traumatized animals a loving home.

Temporary Louisiana Shelter Poised to Accept More Animals
September 17, 2005 [posted on HSUS website September 18, 2005]
BATON ROUGE, Louisiana – Approximately 25 shelters from around the country have formally offered to take between 30 and 200 dogs and cats each from the Lamar-Dixon Expo Center in Gonzales, where more than 1,200 animals are temporarily housed on a sprawling compound northeast of New Orleans. Another 15 or so shelters have unofficially asked commanders at the emergency facility for animals as well.
The main obstacle preventing the movement of animals out of Louisiana is a state regulation requiring that pets owned by residents must be held in Louisiana for at least 30 days. But today, during a meeting between state and federal officials overseeing disaster animal services, Louisiana state veterinarian Maxwell Lea and assistant state veterinarian Martha Littlefield gave oral approval for Lamar-Dixon officials to start shipping out all appropriate animals—with the caveat that the animals be easily tracked down by owners.
Dave Pauli, director of The HSUS's Northern Rockies Regional Office and the incident commander at Lamar-Dixon, assured the state vets that the exported animals would be traceable. All animals leaving the Gonzales facility are microchipped and digitally photographed, he said, with their information to be placed on the website, http://www.petfinder.com/. Pauli added that he wants pets owned by Louisiana residents transported only to shelters in nearby states.
Easing the holding rules will help officials at Lamar-Dixon free up some desperately needed space. State and federal authorities had capped the number of animals allowed at the compound at 1,300, a number that Lamar-Dixon reached and exceeded in less than a week of operation. That meant if rescuers wanted to bring in 200 dogs, compound officials had to move out 200 dogs to other shelters.
But until today, Lamar-Dixon could only transport out of state stray animals and surrendered pets from Orleans Parish, the jurisdiction that includes New Orleans. All others had to remain in Louisiana.
Pauli predicted that within 24 hours or so, after officials review shelter applications and decide which animals are appropriate for transport, many more dogs and cats would be leaving the Lamar-Dixon shelter than in recent days. Somewhere between 200 and 600 animals are moved out of Lamar-Dixon daily, although some days the number has been lower. With more space freed up on Saturday, September 17, rescue teams brought in more than 400 newly rescued animals.
Executives from the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) and The HSUS are reviewing shelter applications thoroughly to make sure that each approved facility provides first-class care for the exported pets. Shelters that pass muster will still be required to hold the animals until September 30; the shelters will then be able to "conditionally foster" the pets from October 1 to October 15, meaning that the foster parent must surrender the animal if the original owner wants to reclaim the pet. After October 16, the animals can be put up for adoption.
The HSUS will pay the costs to fly back any animal in another state who has been reclaimed by his or her owner.

Temporary Animal Shelter in Hattiesburg Housing 500 Rescued Katrina Pets
09/16/2005 Press Release [posted on HSUS website September 18, 2005]
HATTIESBURG, Miss. and WASHINGTON - Mississippi residents looking for pets who were lost or left behind during Hurricane Katrina, should go to the temporary emergency animal shelter in Hattiesburg to see if their pet has been recovered. The facility is not taking phone calls at this time.
More than 500 animals are currently at the Hattiesburg facility. These are animals rescued from southern Mississippi counties. Persons coming to the shelter should bring as much evidence as possible of their residence and their ownership of the animal. This will be a controlled process to ensure that animals are reunited with their rightful owners.
The shelter is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. and located at the Forrest County Multipurpose Center, 952 Sullivan Drive, Barn E.The facility is off Route 49 souteast of Hattiesburg.
In addition, the animal shelters in both Hattiesburg, Miss. and Gonzales, La. are not accepting any more unsolicited, “in-kind” donations of supplies. The shelters are at capacity with supplies and cannot manage any more.

Humane Society to the rescue
AZ Central.com, AZ
The Arizona Humane Society sent three teams to New Orleans to help the animals left behind after Hurricane Katrina. Some of the ...
Abandoned animals head to Phoenix
KPHO Phoenix

Valley to get displaced pets
East Valley Tribune, AZ
September 17, 2005
Noah’s Ark is coming to Phoenix Sky Harbor International Airport. Hundreds of abandoned cats and dogs will be airlifted from flooded Louisiana and flown to the Valley on Sunday aboard two Arizona Air National Guard KC-135 tankers.
As many as 300 animals will take the three-hour flight, each placed in protective crates tied to the floor with bungee cord, said Kim Noetzel, spokeswoman for the Arizona Humane Society. The pilots will be the only humans on board because the short flight means no one needs to tend to the animals, she said. Arizona Air International Guard spokesman Capt. Paul Aguirre confirmed the military’s plans to bring the animals to Phoenix. After the animals arrive at Sky Harbor, they will be taken to a shelter to undergo a thorough check-in process. Each will be scanned for identification microchips and be given one if they don’t have one already. Vaccinations will be administered and each will be fitted with a new collar. Each pet will be photographed and its picture posted on the Web site PetFinder.com. The society plans to adopt out the animals. But those who decide to take in a homeless dog or cat will have to agree to foster care for four to six weeks, giving families of misplaced animals enough time to check out the Web site and locate their pets. If families identify their pets and want them back, the animal will have to be returned to them. None of the animals will be euthanized, Noetzel said. The Arizona Humane Society contacted the Guard for help after a desperate search for a reasonable mode of transportation was exhausted. They couldn’t send the animals by train because it would take too long and would have to be staffed. They couldn’t send them back by bus, and they were having a tough time finding an airline that would agree to take all of the animals. Aguirre said "Operation Noah’s Ark" won’t cost taxpayers anything because the empty planes were already scheduled to return to Arizona after dropping off members of the New Mexico National Guard in New Orleans.

Dog's uncertain fate could have been prevented
Salem Statesman Journal, OR
... Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (www.aspca.org) were rescuing thousands of pets abandoned or lost after Hurricane Katrina smashed into the ...

Animal warden goes to work curing pets, finding owners
Lynchburg News and Advance, VA
... La., where he is helping care for pets separated from their owners by Katrina. ... Management Agency task force, Craig’s job is to help animals get healthy again ...

Dogs in crisis and tragedy
Charlotte Sun-Herald, FL
... And, unfortunately, there is ample crisis to cover with Katrina's rage dominating our domestic ills. So what about the animals? ...

Animal shelters offer hope at finding missing friends
Auburn Citizen, NY
... hundreds of other pet owners each day at this Noah's ark of Katrina's aftermath, and ... People were staying because they wouldn't leave their animals," says Wayne ...

Woman assists animal shelter
Hattiesburg American, MS
... Friedersdorff is a Tulane University graduate and Sullivan said she talked to many of his friends in New Orleans who did not leave because of their pets. ...

Saving the lost pets of New Orleans [Photos]
Naples Daily News (subscription), FL
... and move on to other tasks in the momentous job of rescuing the thousands of pets left behind on the streets of New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina ravaged New ...

Cash and 'Cat 5' Chaos
The gold rush: Contractors and prospectors are flooding the Gulf Coast to grab their piece of the biggest reconstruction ever. If only FEMA could stop fumbling.
Newsweek
[Excerpt]
With so much at stake, and with FEMA still struggling to right itself, the reconstruction effort is beginning to feel as chaotic as the days immediately after Katrina. Reports of snafus are widespread:
n With thousands of starving animals wandering New Orleans, the federal disaster agency placed an emergency $28,370 order with PetsMart for 970 wire pet crates on Sept. 9. The pet-supply chain jumped at the chance to help, even waiving delivery charges, a spokeswoman says. Over four days, FEMA first changed its order, canceled it, reinstated it, put it on hold and finally demanded it. But when the PetsMart truck arrived at a New Orleans naval base Friday, it was initially turned away. When the driver finally gained entry, he drove around the base all day, racking up 152 miles, to find someone to take delivery. The tail-chasing experience left PetsMart "frustrated and disappointed." FEMA admits "kinks" in the process, but says it was its first big pet rescue.

Rescue operation moving to Michoud
Times Picayune
Friday, 8:02 p.m.
A rescue effort started by a New Iberia veterinarian in St. Bernard Parish is moving into bigger quarters at the Michoud facility in eastern New Orleans.
Veterinarian Eric White started collecting pets and strays on Sept. 2, ferrying as many as he could back to his clinic and the Iberia Humane Society, where the animals were cleaned, treated and photographed in the hope of reuniting them with owners, said White's wife, Marilynn White. "He's brought about 100 back," she said. "You cannot imagine the overwhelmingness of this endeavor," Marilynn White said. "They leave at three in the morning, and come back at 11 at night" with animals from St. Bernard."Then another whole crew bathes them, walks them," she said. Some are being sheltered at White's clinic and some are a shelter operated by the Iberia Humane Society, of which White is a board member.
White's task was made a little easier when he got the use of a barn near Aycock Street in Arabi to shelter the animals, and he received donations gathered through a Florida animal group alerted to his efforts through the Internet. He was able to construct temporary pens in the barn to separate dogs by gender, size and temperament, Marilynn White said.
Since then, the Georgia National Guard also stepped in to help, and now the effort is being coordinated by Rani Rathburn of the guard, she said.
Plans now are to move the shelter to a hangar at Michoud, on Saturday. Help now includes three more veterinarians, Marilynn White said. "They have about 250 dogs there...They are trying hard to leave the animals here (in the New Orleans area) and to reunite them with their owners," she said.
All the pets rescued by White can be viewed at the Iberia Humane Society Web site, iberiahumane.com. Donations to help the effort also can be directed to the Iberia Humane Society, care of Acadiana Pet Spa, 1919 Sugar Oaks Road, New Iberia, La., 70563. Donations should be marked "Katrina - Dr. White," Marilynn White said.
There are reportedly thousands more animals roaming still in St. Bernard Parish, said Marie Brossard of the St. Martin Humane Society. Brossard said she has helped field hundreds of emails form St. Bernard residents who heard of White's work and who asked him to rescue their pets.

Katrina Animals Pets ~ September 17, 2005

The Katrina Animal Rescue Resources webpage remains current. Posts for Katrina Animals Pets News from September 16 to August 28, 2005 are below today's post.

Note: The Katrina Animals Pets posts on this blog are mainly focused on larger or national animal rescue group efforts along with the local animal groups in Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas. There are many local efforts of animal groups across the nation. Check your local newspapers and media outlets or ask your local animal groups.

As before, I direct you to:
Katrina National Animal Rescue Groups - Katrina Animal Action Daily Updates: [such as they are!!!]

* Noah’s Wish
* UAN/EARS
* HSUS
* Best Friends
* ASPCA
* AHA
* Katrina.Petfinder.org
* Animal Emergency Response Network (Petfinder.com database)

See also Animal Rescue Resources on Katrina Help Wiki
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Katrina Animals Pets Issues



IFAW: Hurricane Katrina Animal Rescue Report #9: 9/16/05
The Hurricane Relief team is grounded today due to a new mandate requiring a special hazardous materials certification to enter the disaster areas. Acquiring the necessary approval will take just one day. It involves showing the authorities that we are following the proper procedures for making sure we don't carry any toxins from the contaminated floodwaters back with us from our animal rescue missions, such as cleaning our dry suits and hosing down vehicles.
The city of New Orleans is eerily quiet, almost post-apocalyptic, with the only sounds that of helicopters overhead. Everyone we see is in one kind of uniform or another. Our primary area of focus is City Park in the Canal District. As the water recedes, we are seeing more and more debris and evidence of destruction. A stop light completely toppled, shopping carts, plastic bags in trees, floating flower pots ... even a jet ski in the middle of the road.
Because of the overcrowding situation at the Lamar Dixon holding center, yesterday was primarily spent delivering food and water to stranded pets, although we did bring 4 dogs and 3 cats back with us who were in need of immediate medical attention. The water is receding, down to 1-2 feet in most places, and as soon as more animals are transported from Lamar Dixon, we will begin rescuing more animals. There are still a lot of animals left to be saved.
We also received a call that five trumpeter swans were stranded in a city park. Swans can be very aggressive, but they were extremely exhausted and didn't fight us at all. We delivered the swans to the Audobon zoo for safekeeping.

Senators promise to put recovery first
Boston Globe, United States
[Excerpt - Page 2]
For the first time in nearly three weeks, New Orleans will experience a promising repatriation today: Authorities are expecting several thousand business owners to return to dry patches of the city.
Those owners can reclaim their shops and offices in four neighborhoods -- the central business district, the French Quarter, Uptown, and Algiers -- starting at 8 a.m.
''Enter at your own risk," business owners will be told in a memo they will receive today at one of nine checkpoints entering the city. Officials have prepared 100,000 memos for distribution.
When those business owners return, they are likely to encounter some Katrina survivors who never left: dogs, cats, and other pets left behind by owners who never expected to be gone so long.
The president of the Humane Society of the United States lambasted state and federal authorities yesterday for not doing more to aid in retrieving stranded animals.
''We need a swift and decisive declaration to help these pets," Humane Society president Wayne Pacelle said. ''I really appeal to the state and federal leaders to take action today, not tomorrow."
The Humane Society, Pacelle said, has compiled a roster of 7,000 homes where animals were left behind. Pacelle suggested that military forces be enlisted to conduct house-to-house searches for pets.
Major Ed Bush of the Louisiana National Guard said no policy exists governing the role of security forces in aiding stranded animals, although he said there have been repeated instances when troops scooped up wandering pets. ''But our focus has always been to save human lives," he said.

Stonewall veterinarian helps save stranded pets, horses
Shreveport Times, LA
... and other animals that somehow survived the swamped parish. Few animal rescues had taken place there, which was submerged in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. ...

Humane Society says pets should be rescued
Shreveport Times, LA
... plucking humans from their rooftops escaping Hurricane Katrina's fury should have made room for pets, too, says an animal rights group. Animals are starving in ...

EVACUEE yearns to go back for his cat
The State - Columbia,SC,USA
... Charles, had to leave his 2-year-old cat, Concat in the Big Easy. ..."I was trying to get to go to Baton Rouge and be near home and my cat, but was unable. ...

RAINING cats and dogs: the aftermath
Arizona Daily Wildcat - Tucson,AZ,USA
... do so. There are tens of thousands of dogs and cats still needing rescue from the city of New Orleans and surrounding areas. Many ...

Katrina Animals Pets ~ September 16, 2005

The Katrina Animal Rescue Resources webpage remains current. Posts for Katrina Animals Pets News from September 15 to August 28, 2005 are below today's post.

Note: The Katrina Animals Pets posts on this blog are mainly focused on larger or national animal rescue group efforts along with the local animal groups in Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas. There are many local efforts of animal groups across the nation. Check your local newspapers and media outlets or ask your local animal groups.

As before, I direct you to:
Katrina National Animal Rescue Groups - Katrina Animal Action Daily Updates: [such as they are!!!]

* Noah’s Wish
* UAN/EARS
* HSUS
* Best Friends
* ASPCA
* AHA
* Katrina.Petfinder.org

See also Animal Rescue Resources on Katrina Help Wiki
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Katrina Animals Pets Issues



[Nineteen days after Hurricane Katrina and eighteen days after the flooding of New Orleans, the HSUS requests that the public contact President Bush and officials, state that "time is running out." Animals have been suffering day after day, and time ran out for many. For weeks on their own, animal advocates have been daily contacting all officials, news media and leading animal groups, wondering why leading animal groups did not speak out just after the catastrophes.]
HSUS: Urgent Action Needed
Tell President Bush and other officials that the animals need their help. Take Action>>
Time is running out for Katrina's animal victims. Please call these federal and state government officials today and ask them to help rescue animals before it is too late. Phone calls are the most effective way to bring attention to this desperate situation.

Lost Pets at Hattiesburg Shelter
WTOK, MS
Mississippi residents looking for pets that were lost or left behind during Hurricane Katrina, should go to the temporary emergency animal shelter in ...

Shelters work to reunite pets with evacuees
KVUE (subscription), TX
Humans aren't the only ones who have been displaced by Hurricane Katrina -- thousands of pets have too. ...

More Pets Arrive In DC From New Orleans
NBC 4.com, DC
... Hurricane Katrina created 50,000 stranded pets in Louisiana alone, according to an estimate from the Humane Society of the United States. ...

United States Government Response and Recovery to the Aftermath of ...
Department of Homeland Security (press release)
[Excerpt]
U.S. Department of Agriculture’s (USDA) veterinarians and veterinary technicians are working closely with state and local officials and private groups to help rescue pets and displaced animals from storm-ravaged areas of southern Louisiana and Mississippi. USDA is supporting these efforts through veterinary care, shelter and feed for these animals, as well as facilitating reunions with their owners. Recovered pets are given a bath and vaccinated after a thorough examination. Animals recovered in Louisiana can be found on www.petfinder.com

Animal Welfare Groups Race to Save New Orleans Pets (Update1)
Bloomberg
... a hotel maintenance worker who lives on Bourbon Street in New Orleans, refused to evacuate when Hurricane Katrina struck the ... Other pets had to be abandoned. ...

Woman Evacuated To Delaware Finally Reunited With Cats
NBC 10.com, PA
... "Some of the grieving owners looking for their animals they can ... If you are a Katrina victim and you have been evacuated to the Delaware Valley, you can call the ...

Kentucky Vet Tech Faces Red Tape In Louisiana
WKYT, KY
... spent the past week treating four-legged victims of Hurricane Katrina in Louisiana. ... days at LSU helping treat the more than one-thousand animals rescued from ...

Humane Society chief complains about lack of policy for pets
KATC, LA
BATON ROUGE, La. As thousands of animals remain stranded in hurricane-ravaged Louisiana, the head of the Humane Society complained today that state and federal officials have ignored pleas to coordinate and set a policy for animal rescues -- leaving dogs, cats and other pets to starve.
At a minimum, Wayne Pacelle, president of the Humane Society of the United States, says national guardsmen and other emergency responders should be required to pick up animals they see if they are able to do so. At best, he says they should sweep neighborhoods to collect pets.
Guardsmen and other emergency workers are picking up animals on their own, but Pacelle said the plans should be more coordinated and clearly outlined by federal and state officials.
Copyright 2005 Associated Press. All rights reserved.

Lack of policy on rescuing pets criticized
Houston Chronicle, United States
... households have pets, and those animals, whether a bird, dog or iguana, are important to families whose lives already have been shattered by Katrina, Pacelle ...

Subject: 2005 ASPCA Disaster Relief Fund Friday Update
Date: 9/16/2005 1:14:04 PM Pacific Standard Time
TRANSPORT RESTRICTIONS LIFTED The Louisiana Attorney General lifted restrictions on unclaimed animals being allowed to leave the state. Animals, including those with ID, are no longer banned from being transported out if necessary to make room for incoming animals at Lamar-Dixon. However, officials at Lamar-Dixon have elected to keep animals with rabies tags or other ID in the state to make it easier for owners to reclaim them. Animals not claimed by October 16 will be placed up for adoption.

[Absolutely nothing new in this FEMA press release. Here's the oft-repeated reference to time being critical. "Time has become critical for pets that have been stranded since the storm." TIME HAS BEEN CRITICAL FOR EACH 24-HOUR AGONIZING DAY OF THE LAST NINETEEN DAYS.]
Massive Pet Rescue Ongoing
Release Date: September 15, 2005
Release Number: 1603-014

BATON ROUGE, La.-- State and federal agencies, along with numerous non-profit organizations, are united in an ongoing effort to save the pets and animals left helpless by Hurricane Katrina.
"This is the largest animal rescue in the history of the United States ... absolutely unprecedented in scope," said Larry Hawkins, spokesperson for the Unified Incident Command for Animal Rescue in Louisiana . "We have a huge number of people working on this and it's a big success."
Rescuers wade or boat through the flooded city in a house to house search for stranded animals. This joint effort includes the Louisiana Department of Agriculture & Forestry (LDAF), the United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) and the Louisiana Veterinary Medical Association's Small Animal Response Team. Joining those efforts are the Louisiana Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Louisiana State University 's School of Veterinary Medicine , the Department of Homeland Security's Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and the Humane Society of the United States .
FEMA Search and Rescue teams and elements of the military have also recovered numerous pets encountered in the course of their assigned humanitarian rescue mission.
Presently there are 3,850 animals being sheltered at facilities statewide and 445 rescued pets have been reunited with their owners. Scores more are expected to be picked up as soon as families find housing that permits pets. To date, over 4,000 pets have been rescued. Many more are coming in daily.
Animals are arriving so quickly that at one point the system was temporarily overwhelmed. During the weekend, the triage shelter at Lamar Dixon Expo Center temporarily closed its doors to new arrivals due to concerns about overcrowding. Contrary to reports, rescue efforts did not stop during that time. Animals were either sent to alternate facilities or fed and watered in place until they could be retrieved later. The situation at the Lamar Dixon facility has been remedied and additional locations for sheltering are being sought.
The rescue effort is a four-step process beginning with recovery of the animal. Next, the pet is processed so it will not be a health threat to humans or other animals. This triage phase begins with an examination by qualified veterinarians, including those from FEMA's and the American Veterinary Medical Association's Veterinary Medical Assistance Teams (VMAT). Vets from Louisiana , the U.S. Public Health Service, USDA's Animal Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), LSU and volunteers from around the country are also joining in to accomplish the mission. After the initial exam, animals are fed, watered, bathed and given critical medical care and appropriate vaccinations.
Identification efforts begin next. During this phase, a history of the animal is compiled including where the animal was found. This information is transferred to a microchip that is implanted on the rescued pet. Microchips allow animals to be tracked if they are transferred. Digital photographs of the animal are also taken to be posted at www.petfinder.org . The fourth step is sheltering the pet to await reunion with its owner.
Time has become critical for pets that have been stranded since the storm. If people know of a pet that needs rescue call the Animal Rescue Command Center at 225-925-3980. People can also visit www.petfinder.com or www.petfinder.org for more information on pet rescue. More than 8,000 requests for rescue have come in so far.
If someone is looking for a pet they should contact their nearest Humane Society or go online to www.petfinder.org . More information is also available at www.vetmed.lsu.edu .
Although there are some 400 horses and mules in the pet shelters, including those from French Quarter carriage services, more large animal rescue efforts are taking place outside the city. There, units including the U.S. Army Corp of Engineers work to get feed and fresh water to livestock. In Plaquemines Parish, the LDAF and USDA/APHIS are coordinating a state and federal airlift to carry lifesaving supplies to stranded cattle.
National response to the plight of the animals has been heartwarming and overwhelming. Individual and corporate donations have fully equipped the rescue with food and supplies. If people want to help, they are asked to make a cash donation to their favorite animal organization or see www.lvma.org .
Those involved with the rescue want to reassure pet owners and the nation that every humane effort is being made to save the animals left vulnerable by Hurricane Katrina. "We understand what animal owners want and we want the same thing," said Hawkins.
Press conference location:
Louisiana State Emergency Operations Center
7667 Independence Blvd.
Baton Rouge , LA 70806

Pet-rescue policy needed, Humane Society head says
Current rules forced owners to leave animals behind
Marsha Ginsburg, San Francisco Chronicle Staff Writer
Friday, September 16, 2005
Thousands of pets, and perhaps some of their owners, would be alive today if the federal government had a plan in place for rescuing animals after disasters such as Hurricane Katrina, the head of the nation's largest animal welfare organization said Thursday.
In the wake of criticism about the government's lack of coordination during one of the nation's worst disasters, officials from the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Humane Society of the United States are scheduled to appear at a joint press conference in New Orleans today to discuss the issue of animal rescue. Humane Society President Wayne Pacelle said he planned to call on the federal government to come up with the nation's first animal rescue plan.
"Government policies forced people to make an awful choice -- to be rescued and leave behind their pets or to stay in a stricken city and risk their lives," said Pacelle, who was in San Francisco for a fundraiser before returning to New Orleans. "We want to see a rescue policy that recognizes the incredible bond between people and their pets."
He said the government's approach after Hurricane Katrina was to place a priority on rescuing people over pets. FEMA and the U.S. Coast Guard confirmed the policy.
Forcing people to agree to be rescued without their animals "fundamentally misreads the psychology at work of 60 percent of households in America (who have pets)," Pacelle said. In New Orleans, he said, many owners decided to stay rather than leave their animals behind.
The national Humane Society has led the rescue of some 5,000 abandoned animals. There may be as many as 50,000 stranded pets in Louisiana alone, Pacelle said.
Dozens of animal advocacy groups from California, Colorado, Texas and Florida have volunteered to take animals ranging from dogs and cats to exotic birds, Pacelle said. But they need to be rescued first.
Authorities prevented Humane Society volunteers from saving animals in the immediate aftermath of Katrina and the New Orleans flood, Pacelle said.
Then, officials in New Orleans tried to enforce a 30-day quarantine before the animals could be taken out of state. When they dropped that requirement, Humane Society volunteers were still dependent on federal agencies and their rescue equipment.
TV crews filmed scenes of rescue boats passing up animals. There were heart-wrenching stories of families having to leave pets behind, including one boy at the Superdome who begged in vain to keep his dog, Snowball. He cried until he vomited.
There have been acts of kindness, too, Pacelle said. This week, with the help of a National Guard tank, the Humane Society rescued a St. Bernard from a rooftop. The dog had lost half its weight. A Coast Guard cutter rescued a dachshund that gave birth to pups on board the ship.
About 2,000 animals have been taken to a makeshift rescue center in Gonzales, about halfway between Baton Rouge and New Orleans. Dogs, cats, snakes and even a pot-bellied pig are there.
Both FEMA and the Coast Guard said Thursday their mandate was to preserve human life under trying circumstances. Coast Guard Cmdr. Brendan McPherson said rescuing animals was unfamiliar turf.
"In most cases the animal we come across under normal conditions ... the owner would be there," he said. "We're not trained in rescuing animals."
Both agencies said commanders of the crews on scene had the discretion to rescue animals or pass them by.
"This should not be a matter of individual acts of compassion," Pacelle said. "It should be a matter of policy."
E-mail Marsha Ginsburg at mginsburg@sfchronicle.com.

Katrina Animals Pets ~ September 15, 2005: Part 2

[a complete omission of animals and pets]
President Discusses Hurricane Relief in Address to the Nation
Jackson Square New Orleans, Louisiana
September 15, 2005
THE PRESIDENT: Good evening. I'm speaking to you from the city of New Orleans -- nearly empty, still partly under water, and waiting for life and hope to return.
[Excerpts]
The work of rescue is largely finished; the work of recovery is moving forward.

[Some definitions of rescue:
v. To set free, as from danger or imprisonment; save.
n. An act of rescuing; a deliverance. ]

Many families were separated during the evacuation, and we are working to help you reunite. Please call this number: 1-877-568-3317 -- that's 1-877-568-3317 -- and we will work to bring your family back together, and pay for your travel to reach them.

Our first commitment is to meet the immediate needs of those who had to flee their homes and leave all their possessions behind.
I also want to know all the facts about the government response to Hurricane Katrina.

Yet the system, at every level of government, was not well-coordinated, and was overwhelmed in the first few days. It is now clear that a challenge on this scale requires greater federal authority and a broader role for the armed forces -- the institution of our government most capable of massive logistical operations on a moment's notice.

The United States Congress also has an important oversight function to perform. Congress is preparing an investigation, and I will work with members of both parties to make sure this effort is thorough.

[HSUS Press Release September 15 regarding Senators Ensign and Santorum September 13 Letter to President Bush. See also AHA Press Release September 14]
Senators Ensign and Santorum Speak Out on Hurricane Katrina’s Impact on Pets
09/15/2005
WASHINGTON – Today a coalition of animal protection and veterinary organizations praised U.S. Senators John Ensign (R-NV) and Rick Santorum (R-PA) for alerting the President to the impact of Hurricane Katrina on tens of thousands of stranded and abandoned animals and on public health.
Senator Ensign, a veterinarian, and Senator Santorum yesterday sent a letter to President Bush urging him to designate an individual to coordinate the federal government’s response to this emergency and to actively and immediately assist with animal rescue efforts. Thousands of pets are currently waiting for help as they suffer slow and agonizing deaths from starvation and dehydration.
Groups including The Humane Society of the United States, American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, American Veterinary Medical Association, American Humane Association, Animal Welfare Institute, Doris Day Animal League, and United Animal Nations have all been working to rescue animals affected by the devastation of Hurricane Katrina.
Yesterday the groups met with lawmakers and requested urgent assistance moving rescued animals from overwhelmed temporary shelters to safe havens out of state and immediate action from federal relief agencies for animals still waiting to be rescued. Animal welfare teams have rescued thousands of animals from the streets of New Orleans and throughout the Gulf Coast region, but thousands of pets remain stranded and it’s a race against the clock to help them.
“An urgent concern that has arisen from the destruction in Louisiana, Mississippi, and Alabama has been the large number of pets left behind. These animals represent not only an emotional concern, but also a significant public health hazard,” wrote Senators Ensign and Santorum in today’s letter to President Bush. “The federal government must provide the tools necessary to quickly and safely collect and transport abandoned animals from the disaster area to shelters and homes around the country.”
Animal welfare groups have received thousands of phone calls from people who were forced to evacuate without their pets, providing information about their pets so that their animals can be rescued. Many pets are still trapped inside homes, and others are roaming the streets. Rescue organizations are dispatching that information to their teams in the field, who go door to door searching for stranded animals, bring them to emergency staging areas, and provide them with veterinary care. The animals’ photos will be put in a database so that evacuees can be reunited with their lost pets, online at www.petfinder.com/disaster/index.html.
Animal welfare groups called on the federal government to provide more support for the rescue effort, to help move rescued pets out to animal shelters across the country, and for agency responders to actively assist with direct animal rescue. More information on the animal rescue effort is available online at www.hsus.org, www.aspca.org, www.avma.org, www.americanhumane.org, www.awionline.org, www.ddal.org, and www.uan.org. A copy of the letter from Senators Ensign and Santorum is available online at www.hsus.org/web-files/PDF/KatrinaAnimals.pdf.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Rescuers struggle to save pets after Katrina
Reuters
NEW ORLEANS - Rescuers trying frantically to save animals left behind when people fled Hurricane Katrina have given up on collecting pets and begun simply leaving food and water for them.
Teams from as far afield as Los Angeles and San Diego are traveling around the New Orleans area, wading into flooded areas and checking abandoned neighborhoods to find animals that could not accompany their rescued owners.
“It’s very dire,” said Kim Noetzel, marketing director of the Arizona Humane Society, which is trying to help coordinate efforts.
There are now more than 4,000 pets in a temporary shelter in nearby Gonzales, La., and there is nowhere left to take rescued animals. “It is packed to the gills,” Noetzel said in a telephone interview.
“We are not bringing any animals in. We are just going in there and making sure they have food and water,” said Tony Valenzuela of the Arizona Human Society.
Neglected and abusedValenzuela has taken over command of a temporary pet rescue headquarters at a Salvation Army store on the New Orleans city border.
There, a thin dog lies listlessly in the shade, her spine poking through her scabby brown hide. The Arizona group is taking her with them, along with a few other scrawny dogs.
“This is what we are finding now,” said Valenzuela. “These are animals that were neglected and abused before. If this was a normal situation, we’d have a lot of animal abuse prosecutions.”
The teams were able to get into badly flooded St. Bernard parish this week for the first time and found many animals had drowned.
Leaving hearts behind
At home after home, dogs had been left tied up, only to drown slowly as the waters rose and their ropes or chains stretched to the limit.
“It’s horrific. They told us before we left to leave our hearts behind,” Valenzuela said.
Many people heeded mandatory evacuation order for the New Orleans area before Katrina hit but left pets with food and water, expecting to come back after a day or two. They have been gone since the end of August and pets have been locked into houses with no power, no air conditioning, with temperatures above 90 degrees F daily.
Pet owners were trying desperately to get to their animals or organize a rescue. Some evacuees found neighbors to return and check on their animals, while others posted pleas on Web sites such as http://www.petfinder.org/disaster/
Others urged volunteers to come to the Gulf region on their own, warning they may be forced to sleep in their cars because of a lack of housing.
Even at the designated shelters, there is a lack of steady coordination. “It’s mass confusion. One day one person is in charge, another day someone else is there,” Valenzuela said. "We are doing the best we can."
Some people managed to bring their pets along when they fled. Some hospitals, for instance, set up ad hoc kennels.
“It helps the staff concentrate on the patients when they know their pets are safe,” said Valerie Englade, a spokeswoman for East Jefferson General Hospital.
Animals spooked and afraidBut even the animals who are being helped by friends or neighbors are spooked.
Disaster medical experts at West Jefferson Medical Center treated a four-year-old boy attacked by a dog in the southern suburb of Gretna.
“We’ve been taking care of the dogs in our neighborhood for 10 to 12 days now,” explained the boy’s father. One stray tagged along. “He was waving a stick and he swung the stick at the dog.”
The boy has a large cut on his chest and another on his thumb.
“It wasn’t a mean dog,” said the father, who could not be identified for medical privacy reasons.
“The animals down here are totally traumatized,” said Dr. John Twomey, chief medical officer at the disaster clinic. "Even their own dogs and cats are turning on people."
Copyright 2005 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

St. Bernard Parish, New Orleans Louisiana:

Re-entering St. Bernard Parish
Official St. Bernard Parish Government Website, Louisiana

St. Bernard Sheriff’s Office

Best Friends Animal Society Enters St. Bernard Parish; Conducts ...
U.S. Newswire (press release), DC - September 15, 2005
Bernard Parish in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast ... Best Friends reports that assumptions that most of the animals had drowned or otherwise ...
Today, Best Friends Animal Society became the first animal rescue organization to enter St. Bernard Parish in New Orleans since Hurricane Katrina hit the Gulf Coast.

Previous Best Friends reports:
Local vet racing time to save pets in St. Bernard Parish
Sept. 13. Dr. Eric White is setting up a temporary shelter in the parish, where animals can get food and water until transportation is arranged
Since the area is still in lockdown, few animal rescue groups have been allowed into St. Bernard Parish, where pets are in a desperate struggle for survival. (Best Friends is one of the few groups conducting rescues there – see our reports on the Best Friends Activities page.) Dr. White has only been allowed into the area because of important connections he made that first Friday, when he went into the parish to rescue people.
Time running out for our boat in St Bernard Parish
September 9, 2005
From Paul Berry: We had two teams out on boats on Thursday. Troy Snow has written about his crew in an earlier posting. Ours was similar, so I’ll keep this brief.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Local people keep making a difference
[Scroll down to]
On Wednesday morning, TAILS Executive Director Beth Drake and TAILS board President Kathy Stelford, along with other animal rescue workers, entered the highly restricted zone of St. Bernard Parish, which is east of New Orleans. The team members are on an RV and are part of the Disaster Animal Response Team of the Humane Society of the United States."It was not open for animal rescue until today (Wednesday)," TAILS spokeswoman and board member Carolyn Law said.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Pet Sitters International Calls for Creation of Pet-Friendly Evacuation Centers Throughout United States
PR Newswire (press release), NY
... of human and animal life as witnessed in the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. ... facilities are not equipped or authorized to accommodate animals, many people ...

Louisiana State University Hurricane Equine Rescue Operations ...
United States Equestrian Federation, Inc. (press release), KY
... Until then, owners are encouraged to identify their animals as quickly as possible. ... best way to assist the Louisiana Horse Victims of Hurricane Katrina and to ...

Caregiving: Pets are evacuee concerns
United Press International
... on a major concern in New Orleans, both during and after Hurricane Katrina. ... response -- the police or military are not skilled or trained to handle animals.". ...

PetSmart Charities' Rescue Waggin' Vehicles Transporting Displaced ...
PR Newswire (press release), NY
... After the state-required holding period of 30 days, animals impacted by the ... tax-deductible donations to help the pet victims of Hurricane Katrina and other ...

Pets vulnerable to post-traumatic stress, too
Newsweek
... Katrina survivors who are reunited with their pets may notice such signs of stress and anxiety as breaking housetraining or pottying outside the litter box ...

Evacuated animals not being euthanized
Owners of pets brought from New Orleans sought
[Excerpts]
about false rumors
* For the record, neither Lafayette's animal shelter -- which is only housing a few rescued animals -- nor the Blackham Coliseum shelter set up for pets of human evacuees housed at the Cajundome is destroying animals, Lee said.
* That also goes for other shelters in the state, said Larry Hawkins, a spokesman for the U.S. Department of Agriculture's animal rescue effort in Louisiana.
* He also said that another false rumor circulating is that animals rescued from the hurricane will be under some type of quarantine.
Hawkins said animals that are obviously strays can be adopted and taken out of the area or the state, and many have been.
The center had been ordered to stop taking animals briefly this past weekend, but the sanitation and animal control issues that caused that order have been solved, he said.
about effective ways to help
* Hawkins said the organizers of the animal rescue effort are also asking people to hold off on shipping dog food.
* "The LSU veterinary school's Web site at http://www.vetmed.lsu.edu is the primary clearing house for information on animal rescue and aid, Hawkins said.
* Another drain on the rescue effort is people arriving to help without clear plans on where they'll be sleeping or how they'll be eating, Hawkins said.
"When they do that, they become a liability," he said.
Hawkins said the animal rescue organizers welcome the help, but need would-be helpers to be self-sufficient and to work through the coordinated effort.
"If they want to get coordinated, they need to go to Lamar-Dixon and get in contact with the Humane Society, they'll check them (volunteers) over and give them IDs," Hawkins said.
Those IDs will allow volunteers to get into the affected areas to help with animal rescues, he said.
A better way for people to help for now would be to make donations to the animal rescue organization of their choice, he said.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Katrina Animal Shelter Opens In Ocala
WESH.com, FL
[Excerpt]
An animal rescue shelter has opened in Ocala after local teams rescued 59 dogs and 15 cats from Hurricane Katrina-stricken Louisiana.
The animals were pulled out of floodwaters and removed from rooftops.
The new shelter is called KARS -- Katrina Animal Rescue Shelter.
Healthy pets will be transferred on Friday to the old Marion County Humane Shelter located at 10699 SW 105th Ave. They will be housed there until they are adopted.

Abandoned Animals
WCJB, FL
Katrina left thousands of people and their pets homeless. Now many animals are wandering the streets of Mississippi and Louisiana.
That's why one man in our area decided to head to the Gulf Coast and start rescuing some of them. Chuck Williams drove his minivan to New Orleans and brought nine dogs back to his lake house in Hawthorne. He says none of them had any collars or ID tags, so he can't track down their owners.
Williams says the dogs were "running down the streets of New Orleans, just running in packs, the National Guard the New York Police Department would come by and tell us where there were animals running, so they did a lot to help us."
Chuck Williams is now working with several local organizations to get the dogs vaccinated and adopted

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Next wave of Katrina pets flood Bay Area
San Mateo Daily Journal, CA
[Excerpts]
There are few human refugees making their way to California, but about 5,000 stranded pets are expected to and on their feet in the Bay Area. Of that, 100 will be under the care of PHS and 15 will stay at Shamrock private kennels in Pacifica, White said.
Today?s flight is the third of its kind chartered as part of ?Operation Pet Lift,? a now-national effort to save thousands of dogs and cats separated from their owners by Hurricane Katrina.

Katrina Animals Pets ~ September 15, 2005

The Katrina Animal Rescue Resources webpage remains current. Posts for Katrina Animals Pets News from September 14 to August 28, 2005 are below today's post.

Note: The Katrina Animals Pets posts on this blog are mainly focused on larger or national animal rescue group efforts along with the local animal groups in Louisiana, Mississippi, Texas. There are many local efforts of animal groups across the nation. Check your local newspapers and media outlets or ask your local animal groups.

As before, I direct you to:
Katrina National Animal Rescue Groups - Katrina Animal Action Daily Updates: [such as they are!!!]

* Noah’s Wish
* UAN/EARS
* HSUS
* Best Friends
* ASPCA
* AHA
* Katrina.Petfinder.org

See also Animal Rescue Resources on Katrina Help Wiki
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Katrina Animals Pets Issues


See yesterday's incredible and confusing press releases from American Humane Association (AHA) and North Shore Animal League America (NSALA) here.

HSUS: Disaster Response Snapshot: Figures behind Facts
Animals Rescued Louisiana & Mississippi
Confirmed Totals to Date: 4,843
Dogs & Cats: 2,783
Horses: 121
Other Animals: 1,939
Updated: September 13, 5:00 p.m.

Activities Update from LSU Vet Med
[Note this is Parker Coliseum at LSU, NOT Lamar Dixon Expo shelter in Gonzales, LA]
As of Wednesday September 14, 2005, the Parker Coliseum was housing 1,064 companion animals, including 641 dogs, 391 cats, and assorted pigs, rabbits, guinea pigs, ferrets, hamsters, gerbils, mice, tortoises, and birds. Most of these pets are being cared for by volunteers; owners who are staying here in town are caring for 120 of the animals.
Daily admission of animals is still exceeding the numbers being discharged to their owners, but people and their pets are being reunited every day. To date, almost 300 pets from our shelter and their families are back together again.

New goal: No pets left behind
Orlando Sentinel, FL
... kind of hard to become overly worked up about the animals when you ... The day before Hurricane Katrina began blowing ashore, she left everything behind -- family ...

Louisiana State University provides temporary shelter for pets of ...
Toledo Blade, OH
... up at a clinic at Louisiana State University in the first days after Katrina. ... 1. Within the first 48 hours, about 500 animals - mostly dogs and cats - were ...

Groups seek help in saving lost pets
Chicago Tribune, United States
By week's end, a coordinated effort of national animal rescue groups and government agencies will have rescued more than 6,000 animals in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, but officials are calling for even more help.The organizations are implanting ID microchips into the animals, photographing them and entering them into a national database at petfinder.com to reunite owners and pets."This is the largest animal rescue ever in the history of the United States," said Larry Hawkins, Agriculture Department public affairs officer for Louisiana.Wayne Pacelle, president and CEO of the Humane Society of the United States, called on the federal government to assist with the rescue and relief efforts."Time is running out," Pacelle said, "and we desperately need the full force of the National Guard and others to help us."Michael Mountain, president of Best Friends Animal Society, said 30,000 pets still need rescuing.

For pet owners, animal shelters offer chance to find lost friends
MSNBC ... other pet owners each day at this Noah's ark of Hurricane Katrina's aftermath, and ... "People were staying because they wouldn't leave their animals," says Wayne ...

Katrina-stranded cats, owner reunited
The News Journal, DE
The cats survived Hurricane Katrina locked in the bathroom of Blair's New Orleans home ... Blair searched the Internet for news of rescued animals, even as the city ...

`No Pets' Evacuation Cruel To Animals - And People
Hartford Courant, United States
... and consistent with Louisiana law, which correctly regards abandoning animals as an ... with animal organizations but apparently abandoned in the wake of Katrina. ...

Animals another component in need of hurricane relief
Appleton Post Crescent, WI
... As rescue efforts wind down in Louisiana and Mississippi, animal advocates fear the pets left behind as people fled Hurricane Katrina face death or ...

Race to Save Pets Initiative to Provide Support for Pets Impacted ...
Yahoo! News (press release)
... Pets, an initiative that will provide up to $1 million in immediate and ongoing care to the thousands of pets suffering in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. ...

Katrina Animals Pets ~ September 14, 2005: Part 2

American Humane Association Reminds Residents of North Carolina to ...
PR Newswire (press release), NY - September 14, 2005
... today, the American Humane Association reminds North Carolina residents of the hard lesson learned from Hurricane Katrina -- take your animals with you when ...

PETA SUBMITS TESTIMONY ABOUT GOVERNMENT MISHANDLING OF KATRINA’S ...
PETA (press release), VA
Written Testimony to Congressional Committee Challenges the Government?s Order to Abandon Dogs and Cats and Other Wrongdoings
For Immediate Release:September 14, 2005
Contact:Daphna Nachminovitch 757-622-7382
Washington ? Amid a storm of controversy over the government?s poor handling of Hurricane Katrina?s animal victims, PETA will submit written testimony to be heard at a September 15 Congressional hearing investigating the preparations for and response to the disaster.
What: Hearing Before the U.S. House of Representatives Government Reform CommitteeWhen: Thursday, September 15, 2005, 10 a.m. Where: Rayburn House Office Building, Rm 2154
PETA?s testimony was spurred by reports of the deaths of thousands of animals because federal authorities denied animal relief workers access to areas where stranded dogs and cats were known to be and forced residents?against their will?to leave their animals in the wake of the August 29 hurricane.
Addressed in PETA?s testimony is the fact that animal protection groups such as PETA have been trying for years to persuade FEMA to develop specific guidelines on animal handling in a disaster. Instead, victims of Hurricane Katrina were made to choose between their medication and their companion animals or were ordered to leave their animals under threat of arrest, even though abandonment of a companion animal is illegal under Louisiana law.
The federal government caused thousands more animal deaths with its slow response and failure to allow animal protection agents to go in and rescue animals as soon as it was possible. A full six days after the hurricane struck, animal rescue crews were still being denied permission to enter New Orleans to help animals. PETA?s team of experienced rescue workers have been toiling around the clock to rescue stranded animals still suffering in the city.
With companion animals in 63 percent of U.S. households, many people and their pets are directly affected by natural disasters. PETA?s testimony recounts heart-wrenching stories of residents who stayed with their animal companions for days only to be forced to abandon them. Gary Lee Mullins of New Orleans saved his dog from the flood waters and sat with her in a tree for five days but, after being told that he could not take her with him when he was evacuated, he was reduced to having to kill his beloved 16-year-old dog. One woman, Diana Womble, refused to evacuate her flooded home without her cats, even though she had no water.
"The government?s lack of planning and failure to rescue animals in the aftermath of Katrina has caused the slow and agonizing deaths of many thousands of much-loved dogs, cats, and other animals," says PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk "The government must learn from its terrible mistakes and have a system in place to prevent such suffering from ever happening again."
For more information, please visit HelpingAnimals.com. PETA?s testimony is available upon request.

AMID TRAGEDY, SOME SALVATION FOR GULF COAST PETS
Yahoo! News - September 14, 2005
By Georgie Anne Geyer
WASHINGTON -- Everyone knows by now the horrific tragedy that befell New Orleans. But one story, first of sorrow and then of rescue, has remained, oddly enough, little told.
This is the story of the animals, of the pets and other creatures of the region, many of whom found their Noah's Ark too late. This is also the story of still more botch-ups by federal government agencies such as FEMA. The emergency agency initially said that pets were not to be taken out with their owners, telling pet lovers they would be back in two days. But it finally gave in to the persistent and anguished demands of owners and animal rescue organizations and permitted pets to be rescued and reunited.
The first indication that things were not as they should be came, at least for me, on the second day of the evacuations. The tiny dog of a small boy was snatched from his arms before he was forcibly boarded onto a bus, sobbing for his pet, who was simply taken away. I knew then that something had gone very wrong.
After that, the Humane Society of the United States, as well as other animal rescue groups, began receiving anguished calls from Americans separated from their pets for one reason or another, and the sad drama began. By just about everybody's account, the first few days were a worse mess for the animals than for the humans. And once again, whether we are talking about
Iraq or New Orleans, the problem comes down to severe disconnections in organization and in intent between government, society and NGOs.
Oliver "Ollie" Davidson, senior disaster adviser to the Humane Society, who has worked closely with the
Federal Emergency Management Agency, tried to explain to me some of the complex history leading up to the animal tragedies -- and victories. "FEMA has for some time had guidelines to state and local planners," he began, "that people with animals needed to be part of the planning in disasters. But I'd go to state meetings and offer it to them, and they would look at me and stare."
However, he went on, a few states took serious and competent action, particularly Florida, Pennsylvania, North Carolina and Colorado. In fact, the Florida planning, rooted on the county level between government bureaucrats and Humane Society workers, was so good that when hurricanes hit there over the last few years, the outcome was excellent.
But when Katrina struck the Gulf Coast, whatever rules were supposed to apply (there is remarkably little agreement on what those were) became, like so much else, lost in the flood. Vets who had volunteered from around the country were left waiting at airports, and human shelters refused animals (later, the Humane Societies put up separate animal shelters, which have worked well). In short, there was no clearly understood "policy," and whatever policy was generally imposed was both cruel and capricious.
"There could have been ways around it," Davidson went on. "Private rescue people were calling us from everywhere, saying, 'We'll go down and rescue the animals,' but the system wouldn't accept that. Some would probably say that was a reasonable policy -- or that it was a terrible policy."
There were plenty of heroes. One Coast Guardsman reached by phone reminisced with me proudly: "We're the Coast Guard. We'll pull you out; we'll pick up pets. We had both ships and choppers. One man showed up with a bull mastiff in a cage. I looked at the dog and asked him, 'Can you be cool?' He indicated that he could. The real problem was unattended animals of unknown origins, and many of the animals were in the water, contaminated -- you couldn't put them on the buses. They had left a dog in one lumberyard and we tried to save him, but suddenly he growled and got aggressive. So we built a bridge to allow him to get out on his own. It was heartbreaking. There's a steep learning curve for the future for everyone involved here."
Dr. Brian Ghere, a prominent Louisiana veterinarian who saw his own practice utterly destroyed, e-mailed me about Wednesday evening, Aug. 31: "We rescued five humans and over 75 animals ... Getting through the city was very difficult due to fallen trees and debris. Safety was also a concern. But we got through without incident and returned late that evening to Baton Rouge with pets and people. This was the first rescue of pets from the metro area."
Almost every animal welfare group and veterinary society has by now taken part, from Best Friends, to the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, to the American Veterinary Medical Association. Texas oil millionaire T. Boone Pickens has been sending private planes down (a kind of flying Noah's Ark) to pick up unattended animals and carry them to other states where there is shelter room for them. ("It's 'Wheels Up' right now," one excited animal welfare worker told me on the phone from New Orleans. "Two hundred animals are on their way!")
But the problem is far from solved. One phone caller told me that there were many pit bulls in New Orleans and that they are now roaming the streets, some in packs. The hope of many families to be reunited with their pets, despite the microchipping and photographing being done by organizations on the animals, will surely not be fulfilled, now that geographical distances have been added to the already topsy-turvy equation.
The lesson to learn here about the animals is remarkably similar to the lessons from the human tragedy. Clear directives, agreed upon and understood in advance. Cooperation between various interested groups. A strong and insistent hand from the top and, at the same time, special cooperation on county levels. Finally, the ability, which is not so hard, to anticipate what was obvious before the hurricane actually struck.
Perhaps my Coast Guard friend put it best when noting that 60 percent of Americans have one or more pets at home: "All the emergency relief people need to understand that, in America, pets ARE family members."

World's Largest No-Kill Animal Adoption Organization Calls For Immediate Action to Avert Worsening Crisis and Release Homeless Animals for Adoption in Wake of Hurricane Katrina
PR Newswire (press release), NY
Inspection by Lead Veterinarian Reveals Staging Areas for Thousands of
Displaced Animals to be Unsafe and Hazardous
PORT WASHINGTON, N.Y., Sept. 14 /PRNewswire/ -- North Shore Animal League America, the world's largest no-kill pet adoption organization, is calling on the United States Government to take "immediate action" to safeguard the lives of thousands of pets left homeless by Hurricane Katrina. The League's lead veterinarian, Dr. Eve Ognibene is on location visiting many of the animal staging areas that have been set up in the wake of the storm and warns that conditions are deteriorating rapidly.
"There is a huge crisis going on because no one knows who is calling the shots and the regulations on when the animals will be released seem to change on a daily basis," says Dr. Ognibene. "In the meantime, these animals are suffering in temporary staging areas where there is no air conditioning, terrible heat, and illnesses. This is a life-threatening situation and immediate action must be taken to safeguard these helpless victims."
North Shore Animal League America was one of the first animal rescue
agencies on the ground in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and has been actively placing hundreds of homeless pets rescued from shelters in safe and loving homes throughout the country.
Dr. Ognibene, who has been in the Gulf Coast region for the past few weeks overseeing the League's rescue operations is available for interviews to discuss this looming crisis, how to go about adopting these pets, and what pet owners need to know to be "pet prepared" in the event of another natural disaster.
In the past two weeks, North Shore Animal League America has rescued more than 200 pets from shelters destroyed in Hurricane Katrina, placing more than 150 of them in homes. Estimates indicate that more than 10,000 pets were rendered homeless in the worst natural disaster in the nation's history -- a number that increases daily. The League is working 24/7 to help with this unprecedented animal crisis, with its dedicated and experienced team of emergency response staff and volunteers on location throughout the Gulf Coast region.
North Shore Animal League America, located in Port Washington, New York, is the largest no-kill animal shelter in the U.S. Founded in 1944, the League has found loving homes for more than 800,000 dogs, cats, kittens and puppies. More information on the League and its efforts in the Gulf Coast can be found at http://www.nsalamerica.org.
SOURCE North Shore Animal League AmericaWeb Site: http://www.nsalamerica.org

American Humane Association Supports Call on President Bush to ...
PR Newswire (press release), NY
Thousands of Animals Still Stranded in New Orleans
DENVER, Sept. 14 /PRNewswire/ -- Officials in charge of the temporary shelter at the Lamar-Dixon Expo Center in Gonzales, Louisiana, today announced that the shelter will remain closed to new animals due to overcrowding. "We are facing a battle against time to save the animals," states Marie Belew Wheatley, President and CEO of the American Humane Association. "Recommendations sent to President Bush today by U.S. Senators John Ensign and Rick Santorum speak clearly to the need for additional resources and leadership.
The American Humane Association -- through hard work and collaboration with other animal welfare organizations and state authorities -- was given special clearance yesterday to work with the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms to participate in the rescue of people trapped with their companion pets. Although there were some successful rescues, volunteers were devastated to see the number of starving animals still waiting for help on sidewalks and street corners knowing there was no place for them to go. "We applaud Senator Ensign's efforts to raise the issue of identifying additional resources so critical to rescuing more animals. The animals are running out of time," states Wheatley. "Although our skilled teams of volunteers have been on the ground since the storm made landfall, there are thousands of animals still stranded in New Orleans and other outlying areas. We need a solution and we need one now. More important what we need for the future is a Red Cross model for animal rescue." Wheatley continues, "In the aftermath of the nation's worst natural disaster, we're clearly missing the organizational structure, advance planning, and the recognition that human rescue efforts must by definition include family pets. Americans don't abandon family members in times of crisis." The American Humane Association has been on the front lines of disaster rescue and relief since World War I, and the response to Hurricane Katrina is no different. The nearly 130-year-old organization deployed technically trained Animal Emergency Services volunteers with specialized equipment including inflatable boats, dry suits, catch poles, a large animal sling, and collapsible crates. Our 82-foot semi-trailer, one of five emergency vehicles driven into the most devastated areas, includes a medical suite for veterinary care, supplies, food, and sleeping accommodations for the rescuers. The teams arrived the day after destructive winds and water wreaked havoc on the Gulf Coast, and have rescued hundreds of animals, reuniting many of them with distraught families. Ongoing coverage of the American Humane Association relief efforts, along with the latest images from the field, can be found at http://www.americanhumane.org/disaster. Note: The work of American Humane Association Animal Rescue Teams in New Orleans will be featured this Friday, September 16, at 9 pm on an Animal Planet special "Animal Heroes."