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
- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

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."

Katrina Animals Pets ~ September 14, 2005

The Katrina Animal Rescue Resources webpage remains current. Posts for Katrina Animals Pets News from September 13 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


Added to HSUS Disaster Response webpage September 13/14, 2005:
FAQs on HSUS Disaster Response in Louisiana and Mississippi
Including:
Are Animals Being Euthanized?
There are erroneous rumors spreading that animals in Louisiana are being euthanized en masse by The Humane Society of the United States. This is absolutely false. There is no mass euthanasia occurring, and only animals suffering from severe medical issues will be euthanized.
Currently, the disposition of the animals—as well as the ability of veterinarians to practice on site—is determined solely at the discretion of the Louisiana state veterinarian. Similarly, animals who require euthanasia in Mississippi or any temporary animal shelter/holding facility in the Gulf Coast disaster area will only be euthanized after a veterinarian has determined that it is the best course of action for that animal.
Unfortunately, misinformation and deliberate falsehoods are being posted by misguided individuals on certain websites. If you want to help animals get the attention they desperately need, please do not forward rumor emails to The HSUS. Receiving, reading, and responding to rumors are a poor use of our human resources both at our headquarters office and in the field where we are focused solely on saving animals’ lives.

Cleanup, Rescues Continue in New Orleans
Voice of America
... in New Orleans continue to find survivors of Hurricane Katrina, which swept the ... Tracy Sidebottom says many people refused to leave without their pet animals. ...

Stranded equines being helped
KATC, LA
Hundreds of Gulf Coast horses left traumatized and homeless by Hurricane Katrina are receiving an ... The animals are now at various shelters in their home states. ...

People and animals need helping hand
Norwich Bulletin, CT
In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, the people of the United States have been called upon to help thousands of people and animals in the stricken regions. ...

Humane evacuation
Evansville Courier & Press (subscription), IN
... 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 ...

Pet rescues, reunions and regrets
Newsweek
... More than two weeks after Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, at least one happy ending has emerged from the ... “We’re holding all the animals for 30 ...

8 missing dolphins found alive near Gulfport
Birmingham News, AL
... "These animals found us, they came back after Katrina ... ... As Katrina approached more than two weeks ago, Oceanarium staff scrambled to move the animals. ...

Shameful policy caused many pets' deaths
Newsday, NY
... Two weeks after Hurricane Katrina, many of us have seen distressing coverage of animals discarded on rooftops or at stations where people boarded buses for Red ...

A Cat Fight Over Pets' Peril After Katrina
Los Angeles Times, CA
... descedent [sic] people like you, maybe Mexican, do not like animals and mistreat ... heartless disregard for the most helpless of the victims of Katrina, our furry ...

Disaster preparedness for pets
MarketWatch
... Officials estimate that as many as 10,000 animals may need assistance in the areas devastated by Katrina. They add that the demand ...

Pets in Peril
Newsweek
Hurricane Katrina killed hundreds and destroyed billions of dollars in property. For many victims, their animals are all they have left.

PetsTV
PetsTV emailed every U.S. Senator and Representative about the dire situation of the animal victims of Katrina. We received only one thoughtful reply, from Senator Joseph Lieberman. It is as follows:

Katrina Animals Pets ~ September 13, 2005

The Katrina Animal Rescue Resources webpage remains current. Posts for Katrina Animals Pets News from September 12 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

ASPCA.org Rescue Diary September 12 update is now posted online. Scroll down to second paragraph. Gives info on turn-aways and challenges at Lamar Dixon (Gonzales LA) and Baton Rouge shelters.

Priorities today include:

* saving New Orleans pets
* Government Hearings this week

The Latest News From the Gulf Coast and What You Can Do to Help
PETA
September 12, 2005, 6 p.m.: PETA Team Grows by 10 Members; Congress to Hold Hearings.
This Thursday, the House of Representatives Government Reform Committee will hold hearings on the federal government’s response to Katrina. Please ask the committee chair, Rep. Tom Davis, and its ranking minority member, Rep. Henry Waxman, to make the plight of animals affected by disasters such as Katrina a part of their hearings. Let these public servants know that the suffering of Americans was only heightened by the federal blockades that prevented humane agents from coming to the animals’ rescue and by evacuators’ widespread insistence that animals be abandoned to die. Tell Davis and Waxman that the United States must set an international example and that animals’ interests and the interests of their guardians must be taken into consideration in any disaster response plan.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Change on http://www.vetmed.lsu.edu/ LSU Vet Med webpage late yesterday (Sept 12):
For each category except one*, people are now directed to contact the online
Animal Emergency Response Network which is the Petfinder.com database.
* Evacuees Seeking Pets That Were Boarded in Veterinary Clinics - This category contact info remains the same.

Also, several days ago, a reminder that this directive was added to the section:
Request a Rescue of a Pet Left Behind in the Disaster Area
"Residents are now being allowed back into certain parts of the Greater New Orleans areas. While we will do everything we can to rescue as many animals as possible, your pets will have a better chance if you can get in and rescue them yourselves. Please watch the news media for announcements of which areas residents may re-enter.

If you do rescue your pet yourself after requesting rescue through this shelter, please notify us so that we can remove your name from the waiting list."
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

HSUS Update September, 11 11:03 a.m. - [Shows MS areas HSUS has entered]
While The HSUS Disaster Animal Response Teams span out across the Gulf Coast, working against the clock to locate and rescue animals, Laura Bevan and Diane Webber, co-coordinators of The HSUS's disaster response teams operations in Mississippi, are on the road to Waveland, Mississippi to establish a site to begin treating and receiving animals—strays, and those pets who stricken people can no longer keep.
Since arriving in Mississippi right after the hurricane passed, The HSUS disaster teams have established help sites for people and pets in Jackson, then Hattiesburg, then Gautier, then Gulfport.
[See also: Katrina Animal Rescue Staging Locations ]

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Today's Katrina Animals Pets News

Sunken thoroughfare a search launch point
Residents looking for pets, pieces of their past gather at impromptu boat dock for rides to submerged homes
Denver Post, CO
... a launching point for rescue workers and for residents looking for anything left behind - especially pets. After Hurricane Katrina's devastation, residents ...

September 12, 2005, 12 p.m.: PETA Team Makes More Sad Discoveries in New Orleans

Owners comb kennels for lost pets
TheAdvocate.com, Baton Rouge, LA

Local temporary shelter not yet housing animals
Northwest Arkansas Times, AR
... for animals displaced by Hurricane Katrina. ... She said all donations will to go disaster relief efforts for animals affected by Hurricane Katrina.

Rescuing pets could save people
2theadvocate.com, LA
Thousands of people apparently have refused to evacuate New Orleans. A lot of them reportedly have been unwilling to leave pets behind.
A news report Saturday said the military had begun providing cages to pet owners so they could evacuate with their animals.
"We got the capacity, and it seemed like the right thing to do," Army Lt. Gen. Russell Honore said.
The military's action could save some people, as well as their pets.
Earlier, there were indications that some people were forbidden to bring their pets aboard rescue boats.
Pet owners could be risking their lives by refusing to board rescue boats without their pets.
Why would people do that? Maybe they think of their pets as family. Maybe they see it as a matter of responsibility. Maybe they figure the pets would die for them.
For whatever reason, some people take responsibility for their pets as seriously as others take their responsibility for children, siblings or parents.
The Advocate reported last week that Steve Miller of Dutchtown, a volunteer using his boat to rescue people stranded in New Orleans, said he didn't understand why he was not allowed to take pets aboard.
"I don't know why the government won't let us take these people's pets out," Miller said.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency "told us we cannot take the pets. They told that we could not take one cat or dog in our boats," Miller said. "It's a stupid rule. More people are going to die because of that."
We thought Miller's observation made sense, so we put in a call to FEMA. Alyson Smith, with FEMA's Katrina recovery press desk, said the federal agency does not forbid evacuees taking pets with them.
We can't account for the discrepancy between what Miller and Smith said. Whatever the explanation, a lot of people apparently got the idea that evacuees weren't allowed to bring pets with them. There have been repeated reports of people turning rescuers away rather than leave their pets behind. That is potentially tragic.
We wouldn't want human lives to be lost because rescue boats were carrying pets rather than people. On the other hand, Miller has a point: Some human lives could be lost if people's pets are not welcome on rescue boats.
If rescuers have the capacity to save people and their pets without jeopardizing human lives, they ought to do it. As Honore said, it seems like the right thing to do.
Taking both people and their pets could help to persuade some holdouts to leave their homes and get out of flood-ravaged New Orleans.
It's obviously ill-advised to rescue a pet at the expense of a human life, but it's also unwise to refuse to rescue a pet at the risk of a human life.
[Note: This opinion piece of today’s date September 13, speaks about New Orleans residents currently not evacuating because of pets. Don’t know how many there are still of this category. Another category are thousands of pets left in N.O. by evacuees over two weeks ago who thought they'd be gone only a few days. These animals are slowly dying day by day, unless they are lucky enough to be found by the few animal rescue teams on the ground in N.O. For at least the past two days these teams have not rescued, but left food and water, hoping that later these animals will be rescued. This is because there are too many animals in the temporary shelter in Gonzales where animals were not being released. These evacuees were told to request rescues, which they‘ve done by the thousands yet many have heard nothing.]

Refugee pets swamp holding centers
Chicago Tribune, United States
Katrina separated thousands of animals from their owners, and caring for the rescued dogs, cats, birds, horses, snakes and more is a major challenge, the ...

Gulf Coast Pets Not Ready for Trip To Northwest Arkansas
Springdale Morning News, AR
... Services, had planned to bring back as many as 150 dogs and cats displaced by Hurricane Katrina. ... The hospital had been prepared to bring back up to 30 pets. ...

Rescued animals from Gulf Coast up for adoption
San Diego Union Tribune, United States
[Excerpt]
The 38 dogs and 12 cats came from an animal shelter in the Gulf Coast and won't have families looking for them, said Michael Arms, president of the Helen Woodward Animal Center.
He made a plea for other storm-ravaged animals.
"There are about 50,000 animals that are going to die because of Katrina and not so much because of the hurricane, but because of the bureaucratic red tape," Arms said

Leaving pets behind in peril is unacceptable
Vancouver Province (subscription), Canada
... poor, unfortunate people caught in disasters, their pets are all they have left. One volunteer, trying to rescue a man during Hurricane Katrina, eventually let ...

Katrina pet rescue unleashed
Los Angeles Daily News, CA
On Sunday, state and federal officials permitted more than 3,000 dogs at a full HSUS/SPCA temporary shelter in Gonzales, La., to begin relocating to other states.
[I believe what this should state is that a small number of the animals began to be released, not 3000.]
That means more room for the dozens of pets rescued daily from New Orleans that need aid. The Humane Society, which has a disaster team of 200 rescuers on the Gulf Coast, is looking to open a second shelter near Gonzales to cope with the overflow.
The HSUS and other groups have rescued nearly 4,000 animals from Louisiana and Mississippi, with 200 reunited with their owners. Petfinder.com is posting photos of the lost Katrina pets.

DawnWatch.com
Urgent call for volunteer help, plus update on Katrina Disaster animal media coverage -- NEW YORK TIMES column, CHICAGO TRIBUNE front page, LOS ANGELES TIMES and Larry King -- Sept 11

Katrina Animals Pets ~ September 12, 2005

The Katrina Animal Rescue Resources webpage remains current. Posts for Katrina Animals Pets News from September 11 to August 28, 2005 are below today's post.

Katrina Animals Pets Issues


Volunteers Rescue Pets in New Orleans
Voice of America
When Hurricane Katrina cut a path of death and destruction through the US Gulf coast, many animals were left stranded. ...

Jennifer Openshaw
MarketWatch
... Officials estimate that as many as 10,000 animals may need assistance in the areas devastated by Katrina. They add that the demand ...

Katrina Pet Information
KLFY, LA
THOUSANDS OF PETS WERE LEFT STRANDED BY HURRICANE KATRINA, AND MANY THOUSANDS ... EVACUATED PET, FIND SHELTER INFORMATION FOR EVACUATED AND RESCUED ANIMALS, OR GET ...

Local pet rescuers make big difference but still need your help
WSLS.com, VA
... been coming to the rescue of hundreds of pets left stranded by Hurricane Katrina. ... They're working to save 2-thousand animals at their shelter and are still ...

Louisiana Humane Society Moves To Ohio
WRAL.com, NC
... Thousands of animals need to be rescued in New Orleans after Hurricane Katrina. ... needed to rescue and continue adoption efforts for thousands of stranded pets. ...

Rescued animals have their own evacuee camp
Denver Post, CO
... Bernard Parish. One of the Colorado Guard units has been feeding stranded pets, while another is rescuing them. (Post / Craig F. Walker). draft horses. ...

Oregon Humane Society Hurricane Mission Changes: From Search And Rescue to Food And Water (And Love)
MedfordNews.com, OR
[Excerpt]
Portland, Oregon - Saturday morning, the heat and humidity did not change, the fact animals were still in the destroyed city did not change, the desire of our Animal Rescue Team to forge ahead and save as many lives as possible did not change. What did change is that the emergency animal shelter in Gonzales is at maximum capacity. Our team is now providing food, water, and love to those pets still left behind.
Oregon Humane Society volunteer René Pizzo offers this insight into what the OHS Animal Rescue Team is now facing: "We have a different mission today. The emergency animal shelter is overfilled, so we are going in today with lots of food and water. We'll break into homes and check on the animals, feed and water them, and make a list of who needs continuing food and water so future teams can get in and do it. We will only take out animals in dire straits. We don't want to take them out of a bad situation and put them into a worse situation, which is what the shelter will become if we can't adequately care for who is there. We are up to 2,000 animals in the shelter."
OHS now has the 4 member rescue team working the streets of New Orleans, as well as other staff and volunteers working in the emergency animal shelter.

Best Friends:
Animals being turned away from state shelter
Sept. 11. Red tape stymies rescue efforts as rescuers can’t drop animals off
[Excerpts]
The Lamar-Dixon facility is now being managed by the state Department of Health and the authorities in Ascension Parish, and the Louisiana state veterinarian’s office has placed a mandatory hold on the animals housed there.
Animal rescue groups have been working together to try to resolve this issue with state and parish authorities, and there are other shelters within Louisiana and surrounding states with room to take animals from Lamar-Dixon once they are released. In addition, thousands of people have been put on waiting lists after offering to provide foster homes for rescued animals.
But the rescue groups are limited as to the action they can take -- the final authority rests with state and local authorities, and they can decide to suspend an organization’s rescue efforts at any time.
[The above situation is resolving itself; animals at Lamar Dixon shelter in Gonzales are now being released/transferred. But I found the statement I highlighted above incredulous. Why would these national animal rescue groups “be limited as to the action they can take“ in fear of being suspended from participation. Separately or together, they cannot protest? They are assisting the state of Louisiana with a historic crisis; by their own accounts they are providing millions of dollars and unprecedented manpower and resources.]

On the ground in New Orleans, another post from GulfSails:
Pet Rescue... Fighting On.
[Excerpt]
Michael Lohr, a civilian from Los Angeles, who finessed his way to the front lines specifically to help in the pet rescue worked his ass off today. He is EXTREMELY upset with major nationwide animal rights groups who are still to wary of potential security issues to come down here and help. Everyone needs to realize, most of these rescues are being done by various Louisiana Humane Societies, people who are determined enough to come in individually from around the city, the state and the country who are what I've been classifying as animal radicals, and your average New Orleanians who are horrified by the stories trickling out of the desparation and plight of these animals... and trust me, we're not talking hundreds of people here.
You don't even want to begin to hear the horror stories percolating out of St. Bernard Parish.We have not seen a whit of any national groups down here at our site. None at all. And are not hearing about much outside assistance throughout the devastated parishes and coastal Mississippi.
I'm a civilian and I'm starting to rant... back to accolades.

HSUS - September 11
Animal Rescues Continue as Storm of Public Outrage Builds
[Excerpts]
It was the most closely watched race this weekend, this ongoing push to relay the names and locations of animals from the database maintained at The HSUS headquarters in Washington, DC to the field workers on the ground in Louisiana. On Saturday and Sunday, in the shambles that New Orleans has become, animal care and control personnel and volunteers from around the nation acted both creatively and decisively to find, rescue, and sustain animals struggling to survive almost two weeks after Katrina flogged the city. Those animals they could reach and collect, they saved. Those they could not catch, they did their best to feed and water, to keep them alive and give them a chance to survive until the next attempt at rescue.
[How about an update as to how many animals have been rescued off the animal rescue request hotlines?]
Today, officials of the Louisiana SPCA and The HSUS received approval from federal and state authorities to transfer 400 animals out of the emergency shelter set up at the Lamar-Dixon Expo Center in Gonzales, Louisiana.
The agreement marked a resolution of tensions over the viability of Lamar Dixon as a temporary holding facility for the exodus of animals from the stricken landscape of the Big Easy. It was a hopeful sign on a weekend that saw the nation sharpen focus on the harsh and self-defeating outcome of state and federal disaster protocols that forced people to choose between their personal safety and the lives of their pets.

This afternoon, Wayne Pacelle, President and CEO of The HSUS, who on Saturday night appeared on Larry King Live to make a direct appeal for complete federal and state cooperation in the rescue effort, traveled to Louisiana to meet with The HSUS staff members and other responders in the field.
[When did animal groups first realize they needed help and request help from government responders?]

Canine refugees head to California on flight funded by oil tycoon
Times Picayune, LA -
The Continental Airlines flight from Baton Rouge, La., was chartered for about $50,000 by Texas oil tycoon Boone Pickens and his wife, Madeleine, in a movement dubbed by organizers as "Operation Pet Lift."
About half the dogs on Sunday's flight were headed toward the Helen Woodward Animal Center in San Diego, with the rest bound for the Marin Humane Society at San Francisco International Airport.
Austin, Texas-based PetRelocation.com was organizing Sunday's move.
"I have a feeling from here on there's going to be a whole bunch of help," said PetRelocation.com President Kevin O'Brien.
He said Pickens arrived in Baton Rouge Sunday morning on a private jet.
"Rather than just donating the money, he actually got involved and went and helped load the dogs," O'Brien said. "Here you have an iconic philanthropist who was actually loading dogs with his bare hands."
Pickens' spokesman Jay Rosser said the oil magnate hoped to motivate others to pitch in.
"The goal was to help rescue 200 dogs," Rosser said. "They're overjoyed that they were able to rescue 80, but clearly disappointed and dismayed at the bureaucracy which prevented them from taking the full 200."
Kelly Harrington, director of disaster response services for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, said a makeshift shelter for up to several thousand dogs had been set up at the Lamar-Dixon Expo Center in Gonzales, La., about 45 miles northwest of New Orleans.
She hoped additional dogs would be flown out in the coming days, but said the effort was taking time.
"There are legal issues on moving animals that are potentially owned," Harrington said. "Every animal has to be vet checked, vaccinated and microchipped ... so we can track these animals in case an owner does find them."
Petfinder.com was setting up a database of pet pictures to help reunite owners with lost animals. Andrew Rowan, executive vice president of operations for the Humane Society United States, said animals must be moved out of the Gonzales facility quickly to make room for "maybe 50,000 or more dogs and cats in New Orleans that need to be rescued."
The shelter now "looks like Woodstock," he said.
"There are vans and cars and trucks all over the place. Dogs are barking, cats are meowing. It's a tremendous logistical operation to provide the care that these animals need."
The Humane Society's Dave Pauli, the incident commander for the Gonzales facility, said the site is "bursting at the seams. We're beyond capacity."
He said 200 animals were shipped out Sunday by truck to Houston, but rescue teams were expected to bring in about 300 more in the afternoon.
"And we've had about 200 animals reunited with their owners here at this facility. That's what keeps us going. Every one of them brings a tear to your eyes and makes these sleepless nights worth it," Pauli said.
In 26 years, "this is by far the largest animal rescue experience I have seen or been involved with."
The Marin Humane Society north of San Francisco has offered to take in 1,000 dogs. The group was set to receive about 50 canines Sunday, with an additional 400 expected Monday, said spokeswoman Sheri Cardo.
"All of the shelters out here have agreed to hold on to them and facilitate any reunions with their families that can be made," Cardo said.
Help is coming from across the country. The Web sites petfinder.com and craigslist.org list dozens of people who are offering to take in furry Katrina refugees. The ASPCA has received at least $5 million in donations to its disaster relief fund.
And corporate America is caring, too. San Diego-based Petco has raised more than $600,000 for relief. Huntington Beach-based PetProTech said it would divert money targeted for a pet oxygen mask project to relief projects for the rest of the year. Glendale-based D.E.L.T.A. Rescue shipped several truckloads of dog and cat food to the region.
"Time is of the essence," Cardo said. "If they don't start moving these animals out, they're going to have a killing field down there."
[Time has been of the essence for thirteen days. Wonderful that 200 animals have been reunited at this facility and other animals are being transferred (albeit far away) to make room for more rescues coming in. Surely hope many of these are later reunited with guardians/owners. What about the other potential thousands needing rescue, especially in New Orleans?]

As human crisis abated, animal rescues began
The Christian Science Monitor
NEW ORLEANS – For seven days, Nancy Stein circled a locked-down New Orleans, looking for a boat, a canoe, anything, she could use to rescue those who had been left behind on Fontainebleau Street.
As helicopters plucked people from rooftops, she waited for her chance. When it came, she barely made it back before dark along flooded streets. But in a cage in the bottom of a commandeered boat, she had her quarry: her cat, Dash.
"You can't stop a mother looking for her babies," a relieved Ms. Stein says.
The plight of human beings took precedence in the aftermath of hurricane Katrina. Yet as airlift lines shortened and rescue boats came back empty, a shift occurred. Rescuers began taking notice of the many left-behind dogs, birds, pigs, mules, and chinchillas in a city where 69 percent of households have pets.
By Tuesday, it had become the largest pet-rescue operation in the short history of such efforts, which date back to hurricane Andrew in 1992. As dozens of humane agencies descended, even soldiers turned at least a passing notice to lost, displaced, and left-behind pets. Two shelters - one for dropped-off pets at the Coliseum in Baton Rouge and another for rescued ones in Gonzales, La. - held more than 1,000 animals. More flowed in by the minute. Ninety percent of the rescued animals belong to someone.
Since human shelters won't take pets and it's illegal to keep pets in motels in Louisiana, many residents left their pets behind. Some left doors open so pets could fend for themselves. Others showed solidarity with their animals.
"There are a lot of people who wouldn't leave without their pets, so this has become a human safety issue, too," says Renee Bafalis, a United States Humane Society spokeswoman.
Pets who were left behind - thousands of them - seemed to stare morosely from front porches or roam bewildered through soggy streets.
Before the official animal rescue began, residents had already reacted to images of displaced animals. On a makeshift boat ramp a mile from where the 17th Canal Levee was breached, gregarious mutts Big Nasty, Hurricane, and Stinky were given care by a pair of homeless French Quarter mimes.
Troops began grabbing animals. National Guardsmen plucked two of Stein's cats - Cassis and Dot - from her house, though they hid that fact from their captain. By midweek, animals were being allowed onto helicopters airlifting the sick from the city.
Most of the animals "are in pretty good shape," says Ms. Bafalis at the Gonzales shelter. Mostly dehydrated, they're washed with a hose and given a clean cage. For the unclaimed, there's a 15-day wait before officials begin adoption procedures. Meanwhile, crates of food with well-wishing messages arrived on pallets from Massachusetts, Ohio, California, and Georgia.
"It's wonderful, y'all!" says Cathy West, a cat rescue worker from Lousiana.
Animal rescuers had permission to bust into homes, if needed, to grab forlorn pets.
A man Ms. West calls only "Mr. Muscles" returned to his house to find the front door broken open: "He told me, 'I knew it was either a break-in or the humane society.' "
Since nothing was stolen, his hopes rose. On Wednesday, he was reunited with his cat. The big bruiser of a man was in tears over finding his fluffball.

Animal shelter reorganizing
The Lamar Dixon Expo Center, an emergency shelter for rescued pets from New Orleans and surrounding parishes, stopped accepting animals Saturday night and Sunday to give veterinarians, volunteers and workers time to "reorganize and sanitize," said Larry Hawkins, public information officer for the joint public and private team directing the animal rescue effort."We have over 300 horses and in excess of 1,500 companion animals," Hawkins said Sunday. "We reached the capacity of the facility? Today is sort of a stand-down day in terms of accepting animals," he said.Until the situtation is improved, he said rescuers are putting food and water out for animals in the flooded and evacuated areas."Our teams are feeding and watering animals on site," until the privately owned expo center can resume accepting them, he said. Some rescuers are continuing to pick up animals, taking them to other facilities, he said. Plans are to move some of the animals now residing at the expo center. They are treated by veterinarians, photographed and implanted with microchips for identification, he said."Then they can be moved out to other temporary shelters," some out of state, he said.None had been moved by Sunday afternoon, Hawkins said, but he said they might be moved later Sunday or Monday. "It is a logistical processing issue," and he could not speculate on the timing, he said.Meanwhile, food and water is being hauled to the New Orleans area for companion animals and livestock that are either lose or in flooded areas, he said.Earlier this week, video shot by Dallas Morning News photographer David Leeson of a St. Bernard Parish Sheriff?s deputy shooting a dog from the back of a moving vehicle prompted a flood of e-mails to officals and comments at forums about animals.State Sen. Walter Boasso (R-Arabi check ) said he did not see the video, but he has received hundreds of e-mails about dog killings.Boasso said rescue groups have been in the parish gathring stray dogs and cats."I don?t condone shooting animals. All I can tell you is when we went and got our shots Wednesday morning?doctors warned us about dogs, because some dogs."St. Bernard Parish Sheriff Jack Stephens could not be reached Sunday, but earlier this week he said deputies had shot some dogs that were vicious.Leeson said the dog in the video was friendly, and he intended to try to feed it just before it was shot."We did pull up on another dog they had shot and that dog was still alive and writhing on the ground," he said.But Leeson said he endeavored to be fair in the report, including information from an officer explaining that there were aggressive dogs in many neighborhoods, and that he also nearly was attacked. "There really are some dangerous dogs, some of them are starving. They?re basically freaked out," he said.
"I don?t think anybody expected a Category 5 storm that would turn New Orleans into a ghost town," Hawkins said. "I believe that more animals will have been rescued in response to this emergency than in response to any other natural disaster in American history."
[Yes, likely more animals will have been rescued in this disaster; ultimately we'll hear the final count. I hope this isn't set-up for justification of efforts, if potential thousands more are still hanging on to life and waiting in hell for thirteen days?]


Humane Society of Louisiana
New Orleans Animal Rescue.
Nowhere to go for rescued pets!
NEW ORLEANS, SEP 11, 2005

Katrina Animals Pets ~ September 11, 2005

The Katrina Animal Rescue Resources webpage remains current.
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 ~ September 9, 2005

Today's Katrina Animals Pets News


San Antonio Experts Join IFAW to Move Hundreds of Rescued Animals
9/11/2005 12:04:00 PM
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
To: City and State desks
Contact: Chris Cutter of International Fund for Animal Welfare, 508-744-2066 or ccutter@ifaw.org
[Excerpt]
GONZALES, La., Sept. 11 /U.S. Newswire/ -- Animal experts from the San Antonio-based Wild Animal Orphanage (WAO) are today departing for Gonzales, La., where they will collect more than 200 dogs and other animals rescued by the International Fund for Animal Welfare's (IFAW -- http://www.ifaw.org ) Emergency Relief Team.
The IFAW team has rescued the animals over the last few days from flooded out areas of New Orleans, using boats and skilled water rescue experts.
WAO and IFAW will use the WAO Humane Train convoy of animal truck trailers to collect the animals, specially designed and operated vehicles set up to carry both large and small animals. The animals are expected to be moved on Monday to the Houston SPCA, where IFAW has assisted the staff there to set up a temporary shelter at an unused Volkswagen car dealership. The facility is set up and vets are on stand-by to receive the incoming animals.
IFAW's team, working with Code-3 Associates, is currently searching a list of more than 300 addresses where animals are reported to be stranded. To date more than 3,500 requests have been fielded, by rescuers, from people looking for lost pets in the New Orleans area alone. The list of requests is being maintained by the Louisiana ASPCA and compiled by various organizations and agencies around the country that have collected data from concerned pet owners. (IFAW Missing Pet Database -- http://www.ifaw.org/us/missingpets ).

Yesterday newspaper and television news stated aerial spraying would begin in New Orleans, today Sunday September 11. Here is a related news article from September 8:
[Excerpt]
910th Airlift Wing Spray Units Deployed to New Orleans
VIENNA, Ohio -- The 910th Airlift Wing aerial spray unit at the Youngstown Air Reserve Station is being deployed today to New Orleans to begin spraying operations to stop the transmission of water-borne infectious diseases.
Public health officials fear the toxic waters that still cover more than half of the city are dangerous breeding grounds for insects that malaria, West Niles virus and encephalitis.
Two C-130s from the base and nearly 50 Air Force Reservists are being sent to Duke Field in Florida from where they will be deployed first to New Orleans and then, if required, to the remaining areas of Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama hit hard by Hurricane Katrina.
The 910th crews will work closely with the Federal Emergency Management Agency and the Centers for Disease Control, officials said. The insects that will be targeted are primarily mosquitoes and filth flies that are capable of transmitting malaria, West Nile virus, encephalitis and other diseases.
?The product that will be used to combat the disease-spreading insects is dibrom, which is an extremely effective material for mosquito control, and at the amounts that will be applied, is an extremely safe material as well,? said? Karl Haagsma, a research entomologist and Air Force Reserve captain with the 910th Airlift Wing.
?Typically we apply dibrom at a rate of 1/2 to 1 ounce per acre,? he explained. ?When properly applied at these application rates, dibrom is virtually non-toxic to humans, while eliminating a majority of the flying mosquito population.?
Each aerial spray-modified C-130H is capable of spraying about 60,000 acres per day, officials said. Spray missions are normally conducted at dusk when the insects are most active.

Yesterday it was said that admission and release or transfer of rescued animals was halted at the Lamar Dixon shelter in Gonzales Louisiana. Some stated there was a 15-day quarantine imposed by the Louisiana State Veterinarian. So animal rescuers came in with many animals and nowhere to take them. Also, that shelter is at capacity.
On the ASPCA Hurricane Rescue Diary update from evening September 10, it is stated that there is a 24-hour moratorium on admission to the staging area and that the state vet wants animals held thirty days to increase chances of reuniting animals with guardians/owners.

New Orleans pet rescue account on September 10, 2005 from Gulfsails blog (web log)
Tetanus Shots and a Regimen of Augmentin - It's Good For You!
[Excerpts]
At 8:00am this morning our 'team' of pet rescuers headed out to the boat launch at the intersection of Veterans Highway and Fleur De Lis... that's on the overpass that crosses the 17th St. Canal where you drive from fair normality to extreme devastation and uninhabitability.
Our team is made up of one veternarian, one Iberia Humane Society member, one St. Mary Humane Society member, a New Orleans lawyer who's home in Lakeview had four feet of water in it, and myself... one of the amazing things you'll understand after you keep reading is that our 'team' definately grew larger... regular old New Orleanians who simply wanted to do something were coming up and volunteering on the spot. Even if it was just to sit there and talk to the cats, they all wanted to do something to help.

Town of Gonzales handling 1600 evacuated pets
KLFY, LA
Cats, dogs, birds, horses and other pets or farm animals are living at the ... The animals were left stranded when their owners evacuated during Hurricane Katrina. ...

Rescues centering more on animals
2theadvocate.com, LA
Advocate staff photo by PAUL RUTHERFORD Judy Swinger of Richmond, Va., sits in a truck with two dogs she helped rescue in New Orleans' 9th Ward Saturday afternoon.
NEW ORLEANS -- The ranks of humans in need of rescue in the New Orleans area have thinned, but rescue workers are still dealing with a second wave of creatures in need of evacuation -- pets.
Though volunteers with the U.S. Humane Society and state chapters of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals are working the streets of the city mostly emptied by the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, they aren't the only ones keeping an eye out for the animals left behind.
Officers with the U.S. Border Patrol and the U.S. Drug Enforcement Agency have pitched into help animal rescuers, as have members of out-of-state fire and police departments.
Meanwhile, an increasing problem for the people trying to save the lost pets is where to put them until owners show up for them, if they do.
Joe Brocato, a member of a Maryland-based search-and-rescue task force, on Saturday had an idea to solve that problem for one lost puppy that waded through the toxic muck still present throughout the Ninth Ward area.
As he rolled up in a four-wheeler to a decontamination station run by Illinois firefighters to get the muddy beaglish-looking dog washed off, a member of his team called out, "That guy going home with you?"
"He might," Brocato said.
Brocato said he will likely adopt the animal, and considers spotting the lost and stranded animals part of his job.
"A life is a life," he said.
Ed Rogers, a firefighter with the Utica, Ill. Fire Department, said rescue workers are finding stray and trapped animals everywhere.
He said one of his crews had recently found a poodle trapped without food or water in a bathroom, while another seeking humans in need of help had a dog follow them out of the area they were working.
Rogers said the his crew's base is currently shelter to about 30 dogs.
"There's a bunch of firefighters that have adopted kittens," he said. "If they're female, guess what they're naming them."
That'd be Katrina, for those keeping score at home.
Rick Quillin, an investigator with Caddo Parish Animal Services, was working near the Illinois contingent's operation Saturday, driving a pickup with a trio of muddy and exhausted dogs.
He said he was not happy with what he sees as a lack of planning for what to do with the animals.
"We don't have any place to put them," Quillin said. "They say don't pick up an more dogs
Animal rescuers from around the city say they've been told that the animal shelters in parishes as far away as Lafayette -- including Ascension's Lamar-Dixon Expo Center, which was intended to be the primary shelter for animals from southeast Louisiana -- are packed.
Quillin, working with a band of volunteers from Texas, Virginia, Missouri and other states, said that wasn't going to stop him from rescuing the dogs and cats he's been seeing.
"We came here to try and help get some animals," he said.
Quillin worked his cell phone Saturday, calling back to his home parish and as far north as Arkansas to find people willing to take the animals he's found.
Some pet owners have managed to get in touch with him directly, giving him addresses and asking him to check on their pets.
"Most of these people thought they were going to be gone two days," Quillin said. "It's been nearly two weeks."
He said a particular problem he's having on the east side of New Orleans is that so many houses have been fortified heavily against potential criminals.
In one case Saturday, Quillin said he went to the home of pet owner, and heard a dog barking inside, but he could do nothing to reach it.
"We can't get into the house because the bars are so strong," he said.
DEA officers offered to help in that case and even they couldn't get a door open, Quillin said.
Quillin said he was also carrying doses of sodium pentathol to help ease the suffering of animals to injured or sick to be saved.
Further west, a pair of workers with the SPCA of Texas, were working the sludge-laden streets Saturday to find and feed stray and stranded animals.
Tipped by officers with the U.S. Border Patrol, Collin Chilson and Nicole Powell found a puppy that sprinted out of a smashed house to greet them even before they broke the food and water out.
After the food came out, another pair of dogs came splashing through the muck from across the street.
Chilson noted the address while Powell put down food and water, but Chilson noted that the SPCA and Humane Society workers are only taking in animals that are either injured or sick from malnutrition or dehydration.
"We're completely out of room at Lamar-Dixon, so pretty much what we're doing here is setting food and water for all dogs," he said.
In the meantime, workers are taking down the addresses of where they are finding animals.
At a triage center set up in the Sav-A-Center Supermarket parking lot at the Napoleon Avenue-Tchoupitoulas for the animals who need medical care, veterinarian Celeste Gilbert said that Lamar-Dixon is still making room for injured animals.
She said that the volunteers at the triage site and at Lamar-Dixon are seeking any help they can get, but especially need volunteers.

Heifer International animals, barns not spared by Katrina
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette (subscription), AR
... must "pass on the gift" by giving one or more of the animals’ offspring to ... Muntz said he’s afraid damage from Hurricane Katrina could be a crippling blow ...

Uniting pets, families is an emotional task
San Diego Union Tribune, United States
... The Louisiana SPCA had to stop picking up healthy animals yesterday, and instead took only the most ill or most in peril to its crowded shelter at a ...

Five days in Louisiana
BurlingtonFreePress.com, VT
[Scroll down to]
Animal suffering
When locals evacuated before Hurricane Katrina and in the days following its destructive swipe, pet owners left thousands of animals behind to fend for themselves. An officer from the Jefferson Parish Animal Shelter said Wednesday that she had picked up 300 cats and dogs since the previous Friday. They were being taken to a shelter 80 miles away. The Guardsmen saw dozens of abandoned pets on their patrols.Late Tuesday night, cats and dogs roamed the Lacs neighborhood. One gray and white kitten darted through the bushes when the soldiers sat on the stoop of an apartment for a brief rest. The green-eyed cat was scrawny and affection-starved. Overcoming its initial apprehension, the cat wound through the soldiers' legs, climbed onto their laps, purred. The soldiers stroked the kitty, but they had no food to give. They had to leave the kitten behind. They stood and picked up their gear, and the kitten, startled, dashed away. Later, the soldiers trooped past a house where a dog barked plaintively from the back yard. Sgt. Glenn Mayo, 39, of Barre walked to the lopsided wooden fence and peered through a crack. He saw a black dog that appeared to be a Labrador retriever mix. The dog was tethered by a leash. Mayo scaled the fence and planned to cut the pooch loose. But he found a dish full of water and a pile of food, and decided the owners at least occasionally must be looking in on the animal. He climbed back over the fence, leaving the dog barking.The next day, another squad of soldiers visited the Terrytown Fire Department to help hand out meals to locals. That morning, a black Lab the firefighters had never seen before limped into their station. He was so skinny his ribs were visible. The dog was loving and craved a scratch behind the ears as much as he craved food and the firefighters and the Vermonters gave him plenty of both. The dog curled up under a table where the soldiers were eating lunch. The men fed him crackers and bread from their government-supplied Meals Ready to Eat. Firefighters talked briefly about adopting the pooch, but after several hours a fire department supervisor summoned animal control to take the dog away.Red Cross aid

Katrina Animals Pets ~ September 10, 2005

The Katrina Animal Rescue Resources webpage remains current.
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:

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

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Katrina Animals Pets Issues ~ September 9, 2005

Today's Katrina Animal Pets News

[CNN just had an animal news segment (6pm ET). They reported that HSUS had not been able to get into the most affected areas. Why????? I have not seen an update from HSUS for two days. I did not have a satisfactory response from their rescue number. CNN interviewed Terri Crisp of Noah's Wish who are based in Slidell, LA and doing quite well there with home rescues and reuniting pets with owners; of course, a far different situation from New Orleans.

I highlighted in one of the news articles below and saw this on CNN as well, aerial spraying of New Orleans is to take place tomorrow, Sunday. What about the animals still there?????]

Local animal control officers heading to Gulfport
WBBH
FORT MYERS
"It looks pretty bad, like they need all the help they can get," said David Levitt, a Collier animal control officer. It is so bad that officers, who typically spend their days in Collier County with dogs and cats, are headed to the flooded area of Gulfport.

Animal rescues lift human spirits
Atlanta Journal-Constitution
Pass Christian, Miss. — The animal rescue team has come back for Nike the cat. Tramping through the debris left by Hurricane Katrina around the white clapboard house, they see his fresh prints in the dark brown mud. They'll return with a trap, trying to coax him in with a can of Friskies.

[Thanks to Cathy for this one!]
The Latest News From the Gulf Coast and What You Can Do to Help
September 10, 2005, 3 p.m.: PETA Team Pulls Animals From "Intense, War Zone-Like Setting"

Katrina Survivor Reunited With Cat in Hospital Room
PrimeZone (press release), CA
59-Year-Old Man With Chronic Kidney Failure Stood On Chair in 5 ft. of Water for 3 Days Holding Cat Who Meowed to Keep Him Conscious
[Excerpts]
SLIDELL, La., Sept. 10, 2005 (PRIMEZONE) -- Volunteers from the animal rescue organization Noah's Wish and Slidell animal control officers reunited a 59-year-old Katrina survivor with his beloved cat "Miss Kitty" in a Mississippi hospital room yesterday.
"It was the most exciting rescue I have ever been a part of," said Troullier. "This is what it's all about." A 15-year veteran of Slidell Animal Control, Troullier lost everything when his house flooded and he does not have insurance. Nevertheless, the dedicated animal control officer has been working around the clock for two weeks straight.

Troops shift from evacuation to recovery
Sun-Sentinel.com, FL
[Excerpt]
The stream of survivors to a main evacuation point near the convention center slowed considerably yesterday. Among those who did show up for a helicopter lift to the airport were many elderly people and lots of people with pets
From the Louis Armstrong International Airport, they would be heading to shelters all over the country.

ASPCA Provides Emergency Relief to Animal Rescue Workers in Louisiana.
Yahoo! News (press release)
[Excerpt]'
Saturday September 10, 9:00 am ET
- Organization Issues $830,000 in Emergency Funds
- ASPCA Rescue Team Works Around the Clock to Save Animals in Disaster Zone
GONZALES, La., Sept. 10 /PRNewswire/ -- The ASPCA® (American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals®) today announced that it has given more than $830,000 in aid to the animal rescue efforts in the areas affected by Hurricane Katrina.
To date, the organization has received an unprecedented $5.5 million in donations with almost $1 million yesterday alone.
Emergency funds have been issued to 16 organizations in the affected areas to help with all aspects of the search and rescue process including emergency evacuations, animal food supplies, and the development of an infrastructure in order to facilitate the process of caring for the animals. All monies sent to the area have been for the direct care and comfort of the animals affected by this tragedy.
Once rescue efforts have been completed, the ASPCA will grant funds for rebuilding the animal shelters in the affected areas.
Animal relief workers in the field have reported that the animal coalition, lead by the ASPCA, has now rescued more than 2,000 animals as well as 40-50 exotic pets (lizards, snakes, etc) and about 200 horses. The animals as being housed at both the La-Mar Dixon Exposition Center in Gonzales, LA and Louisiana State University (LSU) in Baton Rouge, LA. Animals will begin to be transported to another facility in Monroe, LA as the Gonzales and LSU sites have reached their holding capacity.
[That is great. What is the number of animals rescued from homes in New Orleans or elsewhere, animals that were not pre-evacuated? How many requested rescues have been checked off the lists?]

PETA OFFERS URGENT INFORMATION FOR SAFEGUARDING ANIMALS DURING HURRICANE
PETA (press release)
Group Warns Against Repeating Deadly Mistakes Made During Katrina

For Immediate Relase:
September 10, 2005

Contact:
Daphna Nachminovitch 757-622-7382

Myrtle Beach, S.C. — With South Carolina now in the path of Hurricane Ophelia, PETA is offering important advice for ensuring the safety of animal companions. Please alert people in your area to the following information, which could help save the lives of cats, dogs, birds, and other companion animals who need to be included in disaster-preparation plans—as Hurricane Katrina has graphically illustrated:

· In the event that your area is evacuated, never leave animals behind to fend for themselves. They aren’t any better equipped to survive disasters than humans are.

· Know your destination ahead of time. Shelters often do not accept animals, but motels in the area will probably accept dogs, cats, and other small animals in an emergency. Call destinations in advance and find out which ones will accommodate you and your animals. Do not plan to leave animals unsupervised in a car because they can suffer from heatstroke if the temperature rises above 70°F, and cars are generally unsafe (unless people remain in their cars with them).

· Place small animals in secure carriers. Dogs should be leashed with harnesses because frightening circumstances may make them bolt. Bring along water and food bowls, a towel, and enough food for a week.

· Put secure, legible I.D. tags on your animals in case they become separated from you. Having your animals microchipped for identification is recommended.

· If you truly have no choice and must leave animals behind, leave them inside the house, with access to upper floors. Leave out at least 10 days’ supply of dry food and water. Fill multiple sinks, bowls, pans, and plastic containers with water, and leave the toilet seat up. Do not turn animals loose outside to fend for themselves, and never tie them up or leave them outside in cages, where they will be unable to flee rising floodwaters.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The government failed the animals in zones affected by Hurricane Katrina. People in the stricken areas didn’t realize they would be gone for as long as they have, and, as a result, animals are still perishing—a full two weeks after the initial evacuation. Underestimating the storm could mean death for your companion animal. As Hurricane Katrina has shown, the lives of tens of thousands of animal family members can be put at risk by a lack of preparation.

PETA is also sending its disaster-preparedness public service announcement hosted by William Shatner to area radio and TV stations. For more information, please visit HelpingAnimals.com, where you can also find a list of animal shelters and accommodations that allow animals in your area.

NO Police Say They Are Regaining Control
New York Newsday, NY
[Excerpts]
NEW ORLEANS -- The first street-by-street sweep of this swamped city revealed far fewer corpses than originally feared,
Police and soldiers had been marking houses where corpses were found, or noting their location with global positioning devices, so that the bodies could be collected later.
Health officials also noted that aerial spraying of pesticides will begin Sunday to curb mosquito-borne illnesses such as West Nile virus.
In a shift, the military began providing cages to homeowners to allow them to evacuate with their pets. "We got the capacity, and it seemed like the right thing to do," said Army Lt. Gen. Russel Honore.
[Yes, great. But what about all the other animals that are still in the city? How many animal rescuers are in the city? Who is helping them? Each animal rescue takes time, and time is, has been, running out!]

Saving New Orleans' animals
BBC News, UK
Saving New Orleans' animals
By Matthew Davis BBC News website in New Orleans
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the fate of thousands of abandoned or missing animals was a low priority compared with human safety.
But as the search for the remaining human survivors nears an end, there is growing attention on one of the largest animal rescue efforts the US has seen.
Yet the fate of their pets is a hugely emotional issue for many people who survived Katrina and its aftermath.
With security restored in New Orleans and the waters slowly receding, thousands of volunteers from all over the US are in Louisiana to help reunite people and their animals.
'I have been distraught'
On Friday, the BBC spoke to a crew of female volunteers from a local animal welfare group who were launching their first boat mission to find stranded pets.
Volunteer Tara Barth says she was separated from the 15 cats and two dogs when she had to evacuate her house in the New Orleans lakefront area.
"I thought I would get the chance to go back and get them but we were then moved out of the city - I have been distraught.
"Leaving them was the hardest thing I have ever had to do."
Ms Barth and fellow rescuers loaded their boat with dozens of animal cages and during their search intended to visit the homes with animals noted by the BBC.
Meanwhile, families scattered about the region are searching for pets with the same intensity as they might hunt for a missing relative.
In a sign of the controversy over the issue, Saturday's edition of the Washington Post was carrying a advertisement assailing the policy of forced abandonment of companion animals in the evacuation of New Orleans.
Forced at gunpoint
The People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals group said thousands of animals perished because federal authorities denied animal relief workers access to areas where stranded dogs and cats were known to be.
At a hotel in Baton Rouge, one man told the BBC he was forced from his house at gun point and ordered to abandon his dog.
But many rescuers have been allowing animals onto their boats - both as a means of persuading reluctant residents to leave, and because of their own love of animals.
At the Louis Armstrong International Airport, from where more than 22,000 people have been airlifted out of New Orleans, teams of Army veterinarians have been checking pets.
Sheriff John Crawford, a volunteer from Michigan, says he and his team had been collecting dog food to feed the strays they encounter during their search for human survivors.
"They tug at your heart strings, and although we can't help them all we do what we can," he said.
Of the 1,400 animals at the New Orleans Zoo, just three were reported to have perished - two otters and a raccoon.
More than a dozen staff stayed behind to care for animals at the facility, which is situated on higher ground, and which escaped flood damage.
Turtle saved
But at the Audubon Aquarium in Canal Street, one of the US's leading aquariums, there was worse news.
Although the institution was not badly hit by the waters, many aquatic animals perished because life support systems failed amid damage to the power grid.
Some were saved however - including a green sea turtle named Midas - and police officers reportedly stepped in to help feed the penguins.
The International Fund for Animal Welfare is another group that has been searching door-to-door in New Orleans for pets displaced by Hurricane Katrina.
Over the past two days, IFAW has rescued 43 dogs, 41 cats, a snake, a bird, an iguana, a hamster and a 300-pound potbelly pig.
The only way to get the swine into the boat without capsizing the craft was to build a makeshift floating ramp on the spot, the IFAW said.
Other unusual finds include a couple of chinchillas and 16 dogs that had been left in the Louisiana State University Medical Center.
A major part of the campaign is a joint effort between the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) and the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS), as well as dozens of local organisations and thousands of volunteers from across the country.
Pet website
The Lamar-Dixon Expo Center in nearby Gonzales, Louisiana, has been serving as a base of operations for the rescue effort and as a makeshift animal shelter.
The centre has nearly 1,000 horse stalls and often hosts rodeos.
On arrival, the rescued pets are photographed and entered into a database. Owners have 15 days to claim the animals, then they go up for adoption. Those looking for their lost pets can log on to www.petfinder.org or call 225-647-0712.
Animals unable to be housed at the centre are being moved to temporary shelters in other areas of Louisiana and Texas.

In swamped New Orleans, pets need rescuing too
Reuters
... and increasingly dehydrated and hungry, tens of thousands of pets have probably been ... the city deserted by its citizens when Hurricane Katrina approached almost ...

[An opinion piece by Karen Dawn of DawnWatch.com]
Best Friends Need Shelter, Too
Washington Post, United States
... While Marriott hotels welcomed the pets of Katrina evacuees as "part of the family ... She had begged him to leave, but he was afraid to abandon his animals. ...

Very little animal rescue after hurricane
Akron Beacon Journal, OH
... pet owners in the aftermath of Katrina. The world watched in horror as a rescue worker wrenched a puppy from the arms of a boy. Thousands of animals have been ...

Public howling turns tide for four-legged evacuees
Chicago Tribune, United States
... that 50,000 dogs and cats were stranded in Hurricane Katrina's wake--have ... effort to organize veterinarians, boats and food to help save displaced animals. ...

Animal rescuers race against death
Salt Lake Tribune

Exiled from their La. labs, scientists assess their losses
Boston Globe, United States
NEW ORLEANS -- Hurricane Katrina devastated scientific research in this city, claiming thousands of laboratory animals, ruining valuable caches of tissue, and ...

Katrina Animals Pets Issues ~ September 9, 2005

* Reminder: Limited time periods for guardians / owners to claim pets from the various Emergency or Temporary Animal Shelters. Some are two weeks; Slidell, LA shelter (Noah’s Wish) was three weeks.

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* Priority - Save living animals who are still waiting, slowly dying, in New Orleans, especially needed boat rescues for still-flooded areas. It’s been ELEVEN agonizing days as of September 9. Can you not feel their betrayal, complete discomfort, hunger, thirst, confusion, fear, bewilderment -- each moment an eternity.
Good that finally now pets are being allowed with remaining NO evacuees -- what about all the other animals left behind that are still stranded in homes, buildings, on roofs, in the streets??????

This week I've phoned and e-mailed the White House, the Governor of Louisiana, news media, and other government agencies about the animals slowly dying in New Orleans particularly. The Governor's office advised me to call the Animal Rescue number. I advised them that ANIMAL RESCUERS KNOW!!! and need immediate help from government agencies.

A Petition to Protect the Animal Victims of Hurricane Katrina

* Where are other water rescuers? Other New Orleans animal rescuers?

From the Humane Society of Louisiana September 8:
New Orleans Animal Rescue in Peril. Help urgently required!

Best Friends - Note several reports

* Dogs being shot

Dallas News video
Requires QuickTime (available from Apple website for free for Mac and PC). Video takes almost minute to start.

St. Bernard residents told to leave, or else
Atlantic Journal Constitution:

Forum discussions: NOLA.com Animal Chat Forum/Pet Rescue and others

Best Friends - Note several reports

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* Animal / pet national television news coverage:

While grateful for attention being focused on animals, the national television coverage about pets and animals seems lame, not getting the point, no urgency when there are animals SLOWLY DYING. Tossing a bone to pacify animal advocates.

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* Concern about Katrina animals available for adoption so early:

These are/should be either pets that were already available for adoption who were evacuated from disaster area shelters or those surrendered by guardians/owners because of Hurricane Katrina.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

* Future Issues that some are working on now:

Making sure this animal/pet disaster never happens again:

Include pet-friendly or animal shelters in disaster plans.
Animals/pets must be evacuated with people.

PETA AD BLASTS GOVERNMENT'S BETRAYAL OF KATRINA'S ANIMAL VICTIMS
PETA (press release)

Animal Victims of Natural Disasters
Urge Congress to make a plan to rescue the animal victims of future natural disasters.
Doris Day Animal League

Katrina Animals Pets ~ September 9, 2005

The Katrina Animal Rescue Resources webpage remains current.
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:

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

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Today's Katrina Animal Pets News


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From the Humane Society of Louisiana:

New Orleans Animal Rescue in Peril.
Help urgently required!

Contact: Dana Nesbitt (President)
Email: humaneLA@cs.com

NEW ORLEANS, SEP 8, 2005. Despite the heroic efforts of volunteers and animal groups from both Louisiana and around the country, time is running out for the animals trapped in New Orleans, after the devastation of Hurricane Katrina. Help is desperately required to rescue animals trapped in the flooded ruins of New Orleans or roaming the streets in hungry packs.

Help is also urgently required to help care for the hundreds of animals rescued and located in shelters with no power or running water.
Here's how you can help!


-BOAT OWNERS! Boats are urgently needed. Flat bottomed boats, canoes, anything that can be used to travel around the flooded streets of New Orleans, and which is big enough to hold rescued animals. You must be able to transport the boat to the Louisiana SPCA (http://www.la-spca.org/) shelter established at 9093 St. Landry Rd., Gonzales, LA 70737. HSUS volunteer Linda Nealon can be contacted at Gonzales on (225) 647 0712, but that line is very busy. Bring a boat and it WILL be used.


-ANIMAL CARE AND CONTROL PROFESSIONALS. Anyone with professional animal rescue, control, veterinarians, vet techs - particularly those with water hazard training--would be extremely welcome to come help search and rescue animals from the hazardous flood conditions. Come to the Gonzales shelter.


- NEW ORLEANS NATIVES. We need people familiar with the backstreets of New Orleans to help navigate the backstreets of the City. Come to the Gonzales shelter.


- OWNERS OF LARGE TRUCKS: We need people, preferably with ‘official-looking" vehicles (flashing lights, the name of a rescue agency painted on the side will help rescuers navigate in the city) to help transport rescued animals out of New Orleans to Gonzales. Come to the Gonzales shelter.


- BRING SOME SUPPLIES! Gonzales desperately needs the following: water proof walkie talkies and flashlights, D batteries, insect repellent, sunscreen, waders, animal medical supplies, heavy duty gloves for handling wildlife, and containers full of gasoline. Bring them to Gonzales! They are urgently required.


-POST STUFF. The US Postal Service is supplying Gonzales again. Mail higher value, lower volume items to the shelter like meds, etc.

-CALM DOWN DISTRESSED PETS. Our rescued dogs are freaking out. If you can even just drop by for an afternoon with some dog treats, chew-toys and "greenies" and pet a few distressed pooches, and take some for a walk that would be a tremendous help.


The Humane Society of Louisiana, St. Francis Animal Shelter and Best Friends Animal Sanctuary are jointly operating a huge emergency shelter at 115 Obed Magee Rd., Tylertown, MS 39667, where rescued animals are cared for in the longer term, before being adopted.

-HELP US TRANSPORT animals from Gonzales to Tylertown. Bring large vehicles suitable for animal transport to Gonzales.
The Tylertown Shelter has hundreds of animals but hardly any volunteers to look after them. There is no electricity or running water. There are no landline phones. We desperately need helping hands. You cannot post supplies to Tylertown, as the US postal service has not resumed in the area.


-LOOK AFTER RESCUED PETS. Come down to Tylertown, but bring your own food, clothes, tents, medical supplies and enough gasoline to drive here and back home. Think of this as a camping expedition with a purpose. We do not have the resources to support volunteers. People with experience of caring for small mammals and exotics like spiders and birds are especially welcome.

-BRING YOUR CONTRACTOR SKILLS. We are trying to erect new portable buildings to house the vast number of animals being moved to Tylertown. We need people with the skills and tools to erect fences and buildings, wire up generators, etc.


-BRING BUILDING SUPPLIES, GENERATORS, GASOLINE etc. Anyone who can supply portable building kits, fencing etc., please bring it to Tylertown.


-WE NEED AIR CONDITIONING. If you have AC units which can run off generators and could bring them down help set them up that would vastly improve the miserable hot conditions for the distressed rescues.


-BRING SUPPLIES. At Tylertown we need walkie talkies, flashlights, D batteries, insect repellent, sunscreen, animal medical supplies, heavy duty gloves for handling wildlife, and containers full of gasoline.
The Humane Society of Louisiana"s Executive Director, Jeff Dorson is at Tylertown .


PLEASE NOTE: We are desperately short of people, so anyone helping out must ensure that they can look after themselves, and have enough gasoline to get back home.


PLEASE HELP US BY DONATING:
The Humane Society website is now back online at http://www.humaneLA.org and is ready to accept credit card donations.
Alternatively, send checks (made out to The Humane Society of Louisiana) to our emergency temporary office at P.O. Box 238, Sharon Center OH 44274.
The Humane Society of Louisiana is a 501(c)3 registered charity (No:
58-1795272) and all donations are tax-deductible to the full extent
allowable by US law.


ANIMAL CARRRIERS NEEDED! We desperately need large crates, general
animal carriers and VARI kennels to help us transport the ever
increasing numbers of rescued animals we have in the wrong place.
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Hot Line Offers Support For Evacuees Separated From Pets
KCRA-TV, CA
DAVIS, Calif. -- Thousands of animals have been stranded by Hurricane Katrina and veterinary students in Davis are trying to help their owners cope with ...
Katrina Victims Calling Vet School's Pet Loss Hotline
UC Davis (press release)

In rescue of animals, much cause for praise - The Boston Globe

Evacuation plans must include pets
Savannah Morning News, GA ... Of course, many of the people affected by Katrina were unable to ... when disaster strikes, without being bullied into abandoning their animals, sometimes their ...

PETA AD BLASTS GOVERNMENT'S BETRAYAL OF KATRINA'S ANIMAL VICTIMS
PETA (press release)
Attack on Feds' Order to Abandon Dogs and Cats to Run in Saturday Washington Post; Asks Americans to Help Reverse Cruel, Illegal Policy
For Immediate Release: September 9, 2005
Contact:Daphna Nachminovitch 757-622-7382
Washington — Entitled "Betrayed by Our Government" and showing animal victims of Hurricane Katrina, PETA's three-quarter-page ad assailing the government's policy of forced abandonment of dogs, cats, and other companion animals by New Orleans residents will run in the Saturday, September 10, Washington Post. The ad addresses the thousands of animals who perished because federal authorities denied animal relief workers access to areas where stranded dogs and cats were known to be and forced other residents—against their will—to leave their animals behind during a mandatory evacuation. The ad calls on readers to contact President Bush and Sen. Susan Collins, chair of the Senate Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs, and urge them to help reverse the cruel policy of forced animal abandonment. Abandonment of a companion animal is illegal under Louisiana law. "Animals stranded in apartment buildings, in trees, on rooftops, and on porches are running out of time," says PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk. "They desperately need rescue for their own sake and for the sake of the anguished people who have been forced to leave them behind."
The ad also recounts several heart-wrenching stories of residents who stayed with their beloved animal companions for days only to be forced to abandon them under threat of arrest. PETA has posted ways that people can assist in the animal-rescue effort on its Web site HelpingAnimals.com.
Earlier this week, PETA Honorary Director Rue McClanahan wrote a letter on PETA's behalf to President Bush, FEMA Director Michael Brown, Louisiana Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, and Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, urging them to instruct rescue workers to allow evacuees to take their animals with them. Pamela Anderson, John McEnroe, Stella McCartney, and Martina Navratilova have also lent their support to the rescue effort.
For more information, please visit HelpingAnimals.com. A copy of the ad—which will also run in the Washington Express on Monday—follows.

FBI: Beware Of Katrina Scams
KCRA-TV

Katrina survivors face pet dilemma in evacuation
Reuters AlertNet

The Petfinder.com database for helping animals affected by Hurricane Katrina is now online:

Animal Emergency Response Network
powered by Maddie's Fund and Petfinder.com
Helping Companion Animal Victims and their Caretakers During Disasters

It contains these sections:

My pets need help:
My pet needs to be rescued (for LEFT BEHIND pets) >>
I need to find a FOSTER HOME or temporary care for my pet >>
Show me people offering FOSTER HOME or temporary care >>
I've LOST my pet >>
Search FOUND pet reports >>
Search for pets in SHELTERS >>
I need HELP for my pet that is with me >>

I want to foster or volunteer:
I want to REGISTER to FOSTER displaced pets or VOLUNTEER to help pets in need >>
Show me pets that NEED FOSTER care >>

I have FOUND a pet:
I have FOUND a pet in the disaster region >>
Show me pets that are LOST >>

I am a RESCUE WORKER:
I need to SEARCH the databases>>


From DawnWatch.com
Dawn Animal World News Watch

Katrina evening news updates for Thursday September 8

More coverage of Katrina Animal issue: CNN, Oprah, Los Angeles Times, NY Times, Good Morning America -- Wednesday Sept 7 and Thursday September 8

OPRAH (Tues Sept 6) and LARRY KING LIVE (Thurs Sept 8) on impact of Katrina animal policies

Katrina Animals Pets ~ September 8, 2005

The Katrina Animal Rescue Resources webpage remains current.
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:

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

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I am working on the problem of the contact number(s) for Louisiana animals/pets -- both to report/request a search and rescue and to find owned pets at the temporary shelters -- that are currently listed on the Louisiana State University School of Veterinary Medicine website.
Update 9/7 and 9/8: I was able to reach an actual person at 225-925-3980 (animal rescue) within 9am to 6pm LA time. That number is NOT listed on the LSU School of Vet Med site. On the 888-773-6489 number, I received a message "unable to complete as dialed" but I understood this number to be toll-free and for use WITHIN Louisiana; I am not in Louisiana. I have asked someone IN Louisiana to try the number.
Also refer to Hotline and Shelter info at Katrina Animal Rescue Resources

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Please help stop e-mails and forum posts for help that keep circulating without resolution:

Regarding animals in Waveland Mississippi, please read the information at: http://dogdetective.com/hurricane-katrina-dogs.cfm

Regarding Jackson MS animals / Lynda V. / CARA / "Woman in Norwalk, CT is helping the animals in Jackson, Missisippi", it is my understanding this situation is being worked with assistance from one of the national animal rescue groups.
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Today's Katrina Animal Pets News

Louisiana SPCA
(09/08/05) Jefferson Feed remains a staging area for the animal rescue efforts in the Greater New Orleans area. Animal welfare organizations from Oregon, North Texas, Houston, as well as the LA/SPCA, HUSU and ASPCA, are only a few of many groups who have benefited from their generosity. A massive effort is underway. Over 1000 animals are now located at the temporary shelter in Gonzales. More arrive daily. Volunteers are working at photographing each animal and posting their pictures on Petfinder.org. If you are missing a pet, or know of one in need of rescue, please call.
(225) 647-0712 LA/SPCA Animal Search and Rescue (Orleans Parish)
(504) 733-8572 Jefferson Feed, Pet and Garden Center (Jefferson Parish)
1 (800) humane1 HSUS
[The first two phone numbers will be added to Katrina Animal Rescue Resources ]

Microsoft quickly builds database to help locate hurricane evacuees
By Seattle Times staff
Microsoft and the American Red Cross launched a Web site this week to help friends and family members affected by Hurricane Katrina locate each other. The site, which can be reached at either Katrinasafe.org or Katrinasafe.com, received more than 1,000 inquiries within the first 24 hours of going online.
Although database Web sites of this size usually take months to build, Microsoft employees in Redmond constructed it in about four days.
The Red Cross is urging operators of similar sites to feed information to this site. The list also can be updated and checked by calling a toll-free hotline, 877-LOVED-1S (568-3317).
Microsoft has dispatched three satellite-communication trucks — outfitted with computers and Internet connections — to Baton Rouge, La., and Mississippi to collect evacuee information for the site.

U.S. Coast Guard and National Guard Respond to Pleas to Help Animals; Government Search & Rescue Agencies Reportedly Authorized to Rescue Pets
9/8/2005 6:20:00 PM
To: National Desk
Contact: Karen L. Allanach of the Humane Society of the United States, 301-548-7778; 301-442-6658 or http://releases.usnewswire.com/redir.asp?ReleaseID=52959&Link=mailto:kallanach@hsus.org
WASHINGTON, Sept. 8 /U.S. Newswire/ -- The United States Coast Guard and National Guard troops have begun to allow pets to accompany people who are being evacuated from New Orleans. Their efforts will help The Humane Society of the United States disaster animal response teams and other animal responders who are in Louisiana and Mississippi working desperately to save as many pets as possible as time runs out for animals.
The task is overwhelming even for the combined efforts of all of the animal welfare groups in the Gulf region. It will take the augmenting of rescue forces to respond to the tens of thousands of animals in need. Yesterday, The HSUS issued a plea to federal, state and local agencies for help to rescue the thousands of animals in distress in the afflicted areas.
Disaster Animal Response Teams working with The HSUS and other organizations to rescue animals in Louisiana and Mississippi have made significant progress in the last 24 hours.
"Our representatives in New Orleans called in late yesterday with the good news that National Guard troops are becoming involved with animal rescues and the U.S. Coast Guard is allowing evacuees to bring their pets with them from the flood-ravaged city," said Wayne Pacelle, HSUS president and CEO. "We've also heard reports that rescuers have been allowed to break into storm-damaged properties to rescue animals in dire need of assistance."
The HSUS teams have been involved with more than 1,000 animal rescues in Louisiana and Mississippi to date.
1-800-HUMANE-1 or http://releases.usnewswire.com/redir.asp?ReleaseID=52959&Link=http://www.hsus.org
In one dramatic rescue, a humane officer went to find a pit bull mix trapped under a house that was on fire. Just as a helicopter dumped water on the blaze, the humane officer ran through smoke and fire and found the dog tethered underneath a house where he had wound himself tightly around the PVC piping.
The officer determined the dog posed no threat and was working to cut him loose when the dog jumped on him and started licking his face. A leash was slipped over his head, the tether was cut off, and the lucky dog was escorted back through the haze and heat to the cool comfort of the animal control truck.
In yet another emotional rescue, a disaster relief team found seven stranded cats in a fetid and scorching apartment. Several of the cats cowered in the bathroom and two were hidden under a bed. All were safely rescued and put on the air-conditioned animal control truck.
"I don't think that there is anything that can compare to this disaster for animals," said David Pauli, HSUS regional director who is with the New Orleans team and has been doing emergency response for animals for 30 years. "This rescue mission will set the standard by which all responders will be trained for future disasters."
In Mississippi, an animal disaster hotline is in operation. The number is 1-888-722-3106. A pet-friendly shelter has been established in Barn 8 at the Jackson, Miss. fairgrounds.
In the New Orleans area, many animals have already been removed from the city or evacuated with their families ahead of the storm, but The HSUS has logged over 2,000 reports of animals in need of help. Teams in the field are responding to those reports and picking up a large number of animals on rooftops and other locations. Those animals are being moved to a temporary shelter in Gonzales, La. where they are evaluated and identified. Each animal will be tracked to facilitate reunions with their families.
More than 250 people are now in Louisiana and Mississippi rescuing and caring for the animal victims of Hurricane Katrina and animal control officers, veterinary technicians, and other professionals from around the country have answered the call for help and are streaming into the disaster zone to lend their skills in animal rescue, humane handling, sheltering to the historic effort to save the animals.
At The HSUS' offices in the Washington area, staff and volunteers are answering phone calls, organizing deliveries of supplies and equipment, and coordinating efforts in the field. The organization has received an unprecedented number of phone calls and emails from people around the world who are concerned about the plight of the animals.

250 animals find refuge at Forrest County shelter
Hattiesburg American, MS
Evacuees who walk on two legs are not the only ones to find shelter from Hurricane Katrina in Hattiesburg. ... "The animals were a strong ...

Week tragic for dogs, cats left at coast shelters
Jackson Clarion Ledger

Pet Rescue Efforts Under Way
Jackson Channel.com, MS
... If you've evacuated and are trying to locate your pet, petfinder.com is also compiling a database of rescued Katrina pets. It's ...

IFAW Says Scores of Pets Rescued from Homes in New Orleans
U.S. Newswire (press release), DC
... Fund for Animal Welfare -- http://www.ifaw.org ) said today it is currently searching door-to-door in New Orleans for pets displaced by Hurricane Katrina. ...

Business aids pets lost in hurricaneThe State News, MI
Along with the rescue efforts to help the human victims of Hurricane Katrina, a local pet store is helping the pets of hurricane survivors. ...

Larry King Show Tonight: I believe there will be a segment on Katrina animal rescue efforts including Wayne Pacelle of the HSUS.

Aiding four-legged victims
Chicago Sun-Times

Plight of Stranded Animals Worsening Daily
Washington Post, United States
... across the country are mobilizing in an urgent effort to help thousands of pets and farm animals still stranded or left homeless by Hurricane Katrina and the ...

LA team evacuates pets
Los Angeles Daily News

Time Is Running Out for Stranded Pets
Los Angeles Times, CA
... is that so far, most of the animals left indoors seem to be alive. More aid may be coming. Information is available on the Internet at katrina.petfinder.com. ...

More to follow .....

Katrina Animals Pets ~ September 7, 2005

Posting again as news and information I thought would be compiled elsewhere has not been available (see yesterday's note about avoiding duplication). The Katrina Animal Rescue Resources webpage remains current.
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:

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

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PETA DISPATCHES EMERGENCY TEAM TO AID ANIMAL RESCUE EFFORTS IN NEW ...
PETA (press release)
Animal Rescuers in Desperate Need of Boats, Says Animal Rights Group

For Immediate Release:
September 7, 2005

Contact:
Dan Paden 757-622-7382

Norfolk, Va. — Following continued news reports that the Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) is instructing rescuers in New Orleans not to save hurricane victims’ animals, PETA has today dispatched a team of trained animal-emergency staff members to help rescue animals left abandoned and dying in the wake of Hurricane Katrina. Early this morning, the PETA employees took off for New Orleans with a boat and two vans full of supplies to aid in rescuing animals. PETA has also sent a separate load of supplies, including dog beds and toys, to shelters in the area that are housing animal refugees.

For much of last week, animal rescue efforts in New Orleans were hampered by authorities’ refusal to allow access and threats of violence, but rescuers have at last gained access to some of the hardest hit areas and are finding themselves in desperate need of boats to reach animals who are still stranded more than a week after Hurricane Katrina struck. Animal rescuers are battling against time, limited resources, and red tape in order to reach animals before it’s too late. Many people who have remained in stricken areas in order to care for their own animals—choosing to be left without food, water, or shelter rather than abandoning their companions—are now facing a forced evacuation order, which means that even more animals will need to be rescued.

“Animals stranded in apartment buildings, in trees, on rooftops, and on porches are running out of time,” says PETA President Ingrid E. Newkirk. “They desperately need rescue for their own sake and for the sake of the anguished people who have been forced to leave them behind.”

PETA is urging people to lend their boats to rescue efforts. People wishing to donate the use of their boats should deliver the boats to Laura Maloney at the LaMar Dixon Expo Center, 9039 S. Saint Landry Ave., Gonzales, La. PETA has also put an action alert on its Web site HelpingAnimals.com, calling on FEMA Director Michael Brown to allow both federal agents and volunteer rescuers in New Orleans to evacuate animals with their human families.

Earlier this week, PETA Honorary Director Rue McClanahan wrote a letter on PETA’s behalf to President Bush, FEMA Director Michael Brown, Louisiana Governor Kathleen Babineaux Blanco, and Mississippi Governor Haley Barbour, urging them to instruct rescue workers to allow evacuees to take their animals with them. Pamela Anderson, John McEnroe, Stella McCartney, and Martina Navratilova have also lent their support to the rescue effort by donating items that will be auctioned at PETA’s 25th Anniversary Gala and Humanitarian Awards in Hollywood on Saturday. The proceeds will go to PETA to assist victims of Hurricane Katrina and other animals in times of emergency

For more information, please visit HelpingAnimals.com.

Pet owners refusing to leave homes
Rescuers say efforts disorganized
theadvocate.com, Baton Rouge LA
[Excerpts]
Pets appeared to be the No. 1 reason many of the estimated 10,000 residents still holed up in their flooded homes are refusing to leave.
"I don't know why the government won't let us take these people's pets out," said Steve Miller of Dutchtown, a volunteer who navigated his flat bottom boat down the flooded streets trying to persuade residents to leave.
"But FEMA has told us we cannot take the pets. They told that we could not take one cat or dog in our boats," Miller said. "It's a stupid rule. More people are going to die because of that."

Couple reunited with pets left at NO hospital
San Jose Mercury News, United States
...receiving care. But the childless couple remained distraught about their pets. As Hurricane Katrina approached, the Slidell, La. couple ...

Rescue rule on pets hampers efforts
NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 7 (UPI) -- Volunteer rescuers in New Orleans are getting frustrated by victims who won't leave their pets and government rules that won't let them take the pets.
Steve Miller of Dutchtown, La., said he's been using his boat to rescue stranded residents since Friday, the Baton Rouge Advocate reports.
Miller said he and the nearly 200 people that answered a call for help from authorities have been frustrated by the lack of leadership of the Federal Emergency Management Agency.
He said it got so bad that a number of volunteers broke off from FEMA organized rescues and started working with the U.S. military rescues.
Miller said he has encountered many people who refused to be evacuated without their pets, which is frustrating him.
He also doesn't understand why FEMA won't allow victims to take their pets with them.
Copyright 2005 by United Press International. All Rights Reserved.

Petition to Protect the Animal Victims of Hurricane Katrina
To insure that all animals are included in the evacuations occuring as a result of the Emergency Order issued on Tuesday, September 6, in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina and that those animals are provided adequate supplies and shelter until they are reunited with their owners or adopted.

State To Provide Assistance To Relocate Rescued Animals
Lex 18, KY
Frankfort -- Kentucky State Veterinarian Robert C. Stout has established procedures for movement of horses and livestock into Kentucky from Alabama, Louisiana and Mississippi that were evacuated, displaced or abandoned as a result of Hurricane Katrina. The procedures will speed up the process of relocating rescued animals into the state while at the same time safeguarding Kentucky equine and livestock.
An authorized person must contact the Kentucky State Veterinarian's office at (502) 564-3956 and provide required information before the animal or animals can enter the state. The caller must inform the state about where the animal(s) came from; a physical description of the animals(s), including injuries or other abnormalities; contact information for the person in the state of origin authorizing the movement; the address and contact information of the receiving premises; and the estimated time of arrival in the state.
Upon their arrival into Kentucky, the relocated animals are to be kept separate from equine and other livestock on the premises and quarantined to the receiving premises. They must be inspected and tested by the state veterinarian's office before they may be moved from the receiving premise.

Plans Made To Rescue Pets From Hurricane Areas
WCCO, MN -
(AP) Little Falls, Minn. Humans won't be the only Hurricane Katrina refugees getting a warm welcome in Minnesota this week. Plans are also being made for their pets. Animal rescue operations from around the state are working to get an emergency shelter set up at Camp Ripley, where about 3,000 human evacuees are expected. Fencing and supplies including dog food, cat food and cat litter are being donated. Volunteer veterinarians will staff the shelter, expected to house anywhere from 250 to 1,500 animals. The HART animal rescue in Brainerd, Minn. is taking the lead on setting up the pet shelter. The refugees won't be allowed to bring large dogs or dangerous animals and veterinarians will move quickly to set up a medical screening and vaccination system.

Katrina kills most fish in New Orleans aquarium
CNN International -
... Hurricane Katrina killed most of the fish in the New Orleans Aquarium of the Americas, the American Zoo and Aquarium Association Web site reported. The animals ...

PetSmart Charities Transports Displaced Pets; Gives Funds and ...
Market Wire (press release)
... 50 actively involved animal welfare agencies since the day after Hurricane Katrina's passing. ... It is estimated that up to 2 million pets resided in the affected ...

Ore. team helps rescue stranded pets in New Orleans
kgw.com (subscription), OR
... New Orleans, rounding up stranded and lost animals that survived Hurricane Katrina but are ... the team in some cases broke into homes in order to retrieve pets. ...

Feral animals roam Biloxi, Miss., streets while animal hospitals ...
Myrtle Beach Sun News
[Excerpts]
At the Biloxi Animal Hospital, 1875 Pass Road, veterinarian Dr. Tracy Acosta warned that even loving pets can become aggressive when agitated by heat, chaos and upsetting noise like chainsaws.
Her clinic, open 9 a.m. to 2 p.m., is among those that have reopened and are selling pet food and ministering to injured animals.
FEMA's veterinarian assistance center is on U.S. 49, just north of Pass Road in Gulfport. It is a center for reuniting lost animals with their owners. Owners are asked to bring a description or photograph of the animal and address of where it was last seen.
Acosta, who works with FEMA's operation, said the agency is finding many pets in need of food and care, particularly in the Pass Christian and Waveland areas, where destruction is severe.
"They're having to euthanize animals that are so far gone," she said.

TheHorse.com Creates Emergency Database to Report Animals StrandedBy Hurricane Katrina
TheHorse.com, KY - September 7, 2005 1pm
In response to a request from the American Veterinary Medical Association’s Veterinary Medical Assistance Teams (VMATs), http://www.thehorse.com/ has created a database for citizens to report stranded animals in Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi. This list will be used by the VMATs to direct their searches for large and small animals for rescue.
If you were forced to leave pets or livestock in hurricane-stricken areas, please visit http://www.thehorse.com/ and fill out the available form. [click at left on Report Stranded Animals or View Listed Animals. These submissions will be reviewed by our staff, then posted ASAP on the web site, where VMATs will access them.
Be as complete as possible about the location, number, and types of animals left stranded and include current contact information so team members can contact you if they recover your animals or have questions.
Remember: Most signs are gone. Help rescuers find your pets and livestock by being thorough in your directions; include crossroads, firegate or 911 identifying markers, and GPS coordinates if you have them.

HSUS Pleads with Federal, State, Local Agencies to Help Rescue Thousands of Stranded Pets
ArriveNet (press release), CO - September 7, 2005 10am
...
on the Gulf Coast at a critical juncture -- as thousands of animals have just a couple of days to live -- The Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) is ...
"We are throwing unprecedented resources at the problem, but its magnitude is beyond our capacity. We need help right now," said Wayne Pacelle, HSUS president and CEO. "Federal, state, and local assistance is critical to our efforts to save the thousands of stranded and abandoned pets still out there. We have animal care experts from around the country who are rescuing as many animals as we can, and we can also take animals rescued by other search and rescue teams."

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[Relevant to the two articles following this update.]
ASPCA Evening Update September 6, 2005 [just out 9/7 9:20am]
Reuniting Pets and their People
As New Orleans animals are brought to the staging area in Gonzales, LA, they are being photographed by Cajun Clicker Computer Organization to expedite reuniting them with their families. The Petfinder.com website is hosting the database of information on these displaced pets, which is expected to be up and running very soon.

[The following article is about connecting the human victims of Hurricane Katrina and I have been concerned about this as well regarding national, regional and local animal/pet databases in normal times and during this crisis. See a related article below this about a proposed pet database for pets at the temporary Houston shelters.]

HURRICANE KATRINA: Searching for Answers on the Internet
A single database arises from multiple message boards
San Francisco Chronicle, United States - September 7
An Oakland woman is using Craigslist to track down her 80-year-old grandmother from New Orleans. A refugee in a San Antonio shelter is trying to find his mother and daughters via a New Orleans newspaper's message board. And hundreds of people from the Southeast are using MSNBC's Web site to let relatives know they are safe.
Dozens of message boards have sprung up around the country since Hurricane Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast, promising to throw a technological lifeline to families that have been ripped apart.
But the proliferation of registries has also made it increasingly difficult to figure out where to find information on missing loved ones.
"If I'm a refugee trying to find my brother, I would have to search 20 databases and 20 forms," said David Geilhufe, chief executive of the Social Source Foundation, a charity set up to create software for other nonprofits. "It's a huge problem."
Geilhufe and other technologists have organized a worldwide effort to combine information from the dozens of Web sites into a single searchable database to help family members find one another. As of Tuesday afternoon, the Katrina PeopleFinder Project had compiled 82,164 names, but the list was growing by thousands of names an hour. It went live at katrinalist.net Tuesday night.
"We sort of wish everyone would have stopped for 12 hours and agreed'' on a common system to collect data before launching Web sites, said Ethan Zuckerman, a fellow with the Berkman Center for Internet and Society at Harvard Law School, who helped coordinate the project. "As geeks, we're trying to clean up after the fact and get everything resolved."
Some of the PeopleFinder volunteers developed a program to "scrape" data automatically from several online databases, such as one set up by the American Red Cross.
Thousands of other volunteers manually keyed in data from messages posted on Craigslist and other message boards. As of Tuesday, more than 2,600 volunteers had signed up for the data entry effort.
"It's a solution I could contribute to from San Francisco,'' said Janet Blake, a 31-year-old Web designer who works for ComputerMentor. Blake said she had entered information on 100 people into the database so far, based on posts from Craigslist and a message board set up by the Clarion-Ledger, a newspaper in Jackson, Miss.
In addition, organizers created a potential standard for grouping such data in the future -- called the PeopleFinder Interchange Format -- to make it easier for those compiling databases on missing people to share information.
The PeopleFinder database now contains just barebones information -- such as name, phone number, last known address and status. But Dean Robison of Salesforce.com, a San Francisco software firm that is providing the technology to run the consolidated database, said it could easily be expanded in the future. The same technology could also be used to track missing pets.Craig Newmark, founder of Craigslist in San Francisco, said his company was trying to aid the effort to consolidate the information. "It's just so hard to look in different places -- and then to keep looking at all of them,'' Newmark said.
Nevertheless, Newmark said, people are already finding loved ones through Craigslist and other message boards. Newmark said he had received one e-mail from family members who used Craigslist to locate their 76-year-old grandparents in Mississippi.
Internet users have launched a number of other online efforts to help survivors. They include:
-- The Katrina Information Map. Using Google's mapping technology, Greg Stoll, a software engineer from Austin, Texas, created a program that lets people enter information about specific addresses affected by the storm. It is online at scipionus.com.
-- A portal for hurricane-related information that can be updated by anyone on the Web. The site is available at http://192.122.183.218/wiki/index.php/Main_Page.
-- Maps of hurricane damage. Some are posted online at http://www.kathryncramer.com/photos/new_orleans_flooding/index.html .
E-mail Todd Wallack at twallack@sfchronicle.com.

Software Could Reunite Katrina Victims With Pets
POSTED: 8:21 am EDT September 6
JEFFERSON, Md. -- A Frederick County man who designed software that helps veterinarians keep track of animal records plans to use it to reunite pets that were separated from their owners by Hurricane Katrina.
The president of The Caplen Company, Patrick Allen, and his staff, will leave Thursday for Houston, where they will ask hurricane victims for information about their missing pets.
The team will then head to the disaster zone to photograph stray and dead animals for identification. Allen will build a database that will be shared with humane societies across the region.
The costs will be covered by corporate sponsors
Copyright 2005 by The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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Pet lovers fret over Katrina's forgotten victims
Gainesville Times, GA - September 7, 2005
... While the Katrina Pet Convoy is designed to help pets that have no owners, other organizations, such as Noah's Wish, are working to reunite pets and owners who ...
[Excerpt]
Some of the storm victims dropped their pets off at animal shelters in Louisiana and neighboring states before fleeing. But those shelters are now filled beyond capacity with stranded pets and soon may have no choice but to start euthanizing them.
That's why two Marietta women, Jill Rosenfield and Lisa Schultz, decided to get involved with a multistate project called the Katrina Pet Convoy.
Just before the hurricane hit New Orleans, a local humane shelter called Southern Animal Rescue evacuated 145 animals to another shelter in Arlington, Texas.
But as homeless pets rescued from the flooded areas continue to be brought in, the Arlington facility's population has swollen to more than 600 animals, far more than it can safely handle.
On Thursday, volunteers from Georgia, North Carolina, Massachusetts and elsewhere plan to travel to Texas, load up two horse trailers with as many as 100 crated pets, and bring them to metro Atlanta.
"These are animals that were already at a humane society, so they've all been spayed, had their shots, and have been checked by a vet," Rosenfield said.
Once the caravan reaches Atlanta, volunteers will put the animals in private vehicles and take them to cities where someone has agreed to adopt them.
"We're looking for adoptive homes, not foster homes," Rosenfield said. "We don't want them to end up back in a shelter and be euthanized. That's the opposite of what we're trying to accomplish."
The group has set up a toll-free number and a Web site, http://www.katrinapetconvoy.org/ and is urging potential adopters to call as soon as possible.
"The goal is to free up space in the shelters, so they will have room for animals that could possibly be reunited with their owners," Schultz said

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Petfinder Update: Tuesday, September 6, 2005, 7:00 am Our programmers are currently hard at work developing a comprehensive database to aid the pets affected by Hurricane Katrina. We plan to have it operational within the next few days.
National Hotline for reporting lost pets 1-888-pets-911

American Humane Association (AHA) Update: September 6, 2005
We are coordinating with the liaison from the State of Louisiana to determine which areas need our resources and are taking on Incident Command for the Blackham Coliseum in Lafayette.
Many American Humane volunteers are caring for pets at a temporary animal shelter in Lafayette. Other American Humane volunteers are in New Orleans with boats, gear, and specialized skills to perform water animal rescue. We're coordinating back-up resources to get more support to the shelter in Gonzales that is caring for abandoned animals.

HSUS Update: September 6, 8:40 p.m.
Today, on their third day of access to the cheerless city of New Orleans, members of HSUS's Disaster Animal Rescue Teams (DART) helped to carry dozens of animals to safety, taking them out of houses, picking them up in the streets, and collecting them from displaced evacuees leaving the city.
One ground-based DART team rescued at least nineteen cats in break-and-enter operations undertaken with permission from authorities. Fourteen other teams were operating across Mississippi and Louisiana.
The animal exodus from New Orleans works this way: After the day's patrols end, rescued animals are taken to a triage point outside the careworn city in caravans of small vehicles. There, ailing animals are stabilized, with those in good condition being moved to the Lamar-Dixon Expo Center in Gonzales, the improvised headquarters of the Louisiana SPCA, The HSUS, and their rescue partners—and a facility that lends itself well to the staging of a large-scale animal rescue. The sicker animals are currently sent to a veterinary hospital at Louisiana State University.

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[An interesting media release / news article dated September 6 ..... Best Friends recently posted about PETA's timing in asking the public to contact legislators.]
KATRINA: BEST FRIENDS NEEDS HELP WITH ANIMAL RESCUES
KTAL-TV, LA
MEDIA ALERT: Hurricane Katrina Best Friends Animal Society pleads: Let the animals go!Kanab, UT (8 a.m. MDT 9/06/2005) For almost a week now, Best Friends Animal Society has been virtually the only animal organization with a permit to go in and out of New Orleans to rescue the animals. Today, we issued a plea to local and federal officials to give local and national rescue organizations free access to all New Orleans Parishes."It makes no sense at all to stop them all going in," said Michael Mountain, president of Best Friends. "The local rescue organizations know their way around, they know where the animals are, and they know how to get them to safety."In the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina, Best Friends Animal Society was one of the first welfare organizations, humane or humanitarian, to begin on the ground relief efforts in the greater New Orleans area. While most were stuck in the tangle of the bureaucracy, Best Friends, led by Director of Operations Paul Berry, was able to establish a partnership with Jefferson Parish Animal Control and initiate animal rescue efforts as early as Thursday, September 1st."We`ve been working under the radar somewhat," said Mountain, "so that we don`t get stopped. That`s because there are so many pointless restrictions about what the animal rescuers can and can`t do. Each of the groups has safe places outside of town. And they need to get on with their work."Best Friends points out that every animal that dies just becomes another public health hazard. And being forced to leave their pets behind is yet heartbreak for people being evacuated from the city."When you`re being evacuated, you`re told to go to a pick-up location to board a bus. You`ve already lost your home and all your possessions. And now your last memory is leaving Fido or Fluffy on the sidewalk."On Sunday, authorities lifted the prohibition on taking pets on evacuation buses but that was only when most people had already been evacuated.Many of the people who have refused to leave their homes are staying precisely because they won`t abandon the animals."Why not just let the animal rescue groups in to take these animals to safety and then reunite them with their people?" asks Mountain. "They`re not using up any other needed resources. They`re not in anyone else`s way. They`re only helping."Best Friends` safe area is located at the St. Francis Animal Sanctuary outside of Tylertown, under the management of Paul Berry, Best Friends director of operations."Every day now, we pick up animals from the Westbank Shelter in Jefferson Parish, to enable Bert Smith (director of animal control) and his team to continue their sweeps of the city and bring in more strays and homeless pets. Two days ago, the sheriff gave the go-ahead to break into a pet store and take out 150 animals that had been abandoned. Yesterday, we took all of those, plus 40 more dogs, to the sanctuary, too.ST BERNARD PARISH: Today Best Friends is working to get access to animals in St. Bernard Parish."Yesterday, for example, there was a woman there who didn`t want to abandon her pets and had them all in a shopping cart," reports Berry. "She finally collapsed from exhaustion and was crying out when she was picked up and taken to a hospital leaving her animals on the street. Why can`t we just cross the border into St. Bernard Parish and collect those animals?"ORLEANS PARISH: Another well-known story is that of Gene Adams, a dedicated animal keeper, who is refusing to leave his French Quarter home and abandon his parrots, chickens, and goats. He told an animal rescuer on the phone yesterday that there are at least 12 other people in the same situation. There are many rescue groups able and ready to take these animals to safety and then reunite them with their people.There are hundreds more such stories."Thanks heavens for Bert Smith and the sheriff of Jefferson Parish," said Mountain. "They`ve been heroes for people and their pets. Now it`s time for all local, state, and federal officials to let the animal rescue organizations do their work.Best Friends Animal Society, headquartered in Kanab, Utah, runs the nation`s largest sanctuary for abused and abandoned animals, and works with grassroots groups across the country to bring about a time when there are no more homeless pets.For the latest-breaking news from the frontlines of animal rescue visit http://www.besttfriends.org/ and go the Special Report: "Hurricane Katrina: Animals in the Disaster"

Rescuers scramble to reach animals left in dire straits
USA Today - September 6, 2005
... the situation is growing more desperate by the hour for thousands of Katrina's four-footed victims.

American Humane Association Joins With Other Animal Welfare Organizations to Save Animals in Louisiana
Water Rescue & Shelter Set-Up Making Progress for Displaced Pets
DENVER, Sept. 6 /PRNewswire/ -- Teams of American Humane Association's Animal Emergency Services responders along with other animal rescue teams have been pulling stranded animals from submerged areas of downtown New Orleans for the last two days and transporting them to safety -- all by boat -- according to the latest field reports. The rescue teams, dispatched into the flooded areas again today by the American Humane Association, are experienced and highly trained for technical animal rescue, and are working alongside expert responders from other organizations to save as many animals as possible. Groups combining forces with the American Humane Association include Animal Rescue League of Boston, United Animal Nations (UAN), American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA), Code 3, and Humane Society of the United States. (HSUS).
At the request of the state veterinarian's office, the American Humane Association's Animal Emergency Services -- in addition to participating in rescue operations in New Orleans -- has taken on management of the animal shelter set up at Blackham Coliseum in Lafayette, Louisiana, where they have been staged ever since receiving clearance to enter the state on Saturday. Facilities established in the Blackham Coliseum currently shelter 306 pets -- from dogs and cats to snakes and ferrets -- who arrived with their families, forced from their homes by the hurricane. "The American Humane Association and the American Red Cross recently renewed a Statement of Understanding to co-locate human and animal shelters whenever possible," explains Wheatley. "And, the Blackham shelter is an incredible, heartwarming example of this in action: People displaced from their homes are housed just across the street from the Coliseum, so they can come each day to feed and walk their pets and find solace in the loving companionship of their animals." The American Humane Association's Animal Emergency Services will soon head into Gonzales, Louisiana, to assist with the management of the shelter operation housing animals brought from New Orleans by the rescue teams, as well as the countless other pets without families to claim them.

Charities hoping to help reunite owners with pets left in ...
KESQ, CA -
[Excerpt]
"Noah's Ark is pretty full," said Tammy Kirkpatrick, director of animal care shelter at the Humane Society of North Texas.
As Hurricane Katrina evacuees pour into Texas, pets displaced by the storm continue arriving with them. Refugees unable to care for their dogs and cats are handing them over to animal shelters already crowded with animals evacuated before the hurricane.
More than 600 displaced pets remain in Houston. Hundreds fill kennels and cages in Dallas, with organizations transporting hundreds more around the state.
Officials said pets rescued from flooded streets and homes will displace adoptable animals still sheltered in Louisiana, bringing even more to Texas.
"With the way things are going right now, we're estimating thousands," said Alice Sarmiento, spokeswoman for the Houston chapter of the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
Animals transported to Texas are almost exclusively those without owners. Officials want to keep rescued pets that refugees left behind at designated shelters in Louisiana, keeping pet recovery in a centralized location.
That has made for few, if any, remarkable pet reunions in Texas. But there have been plenty of sad surrenders.

Katrina's 4-legged victims
San Antonio Express (subscription), TX
It was a furry reunion Tuesday for Lydia Chimilio and her pet rabbit, Capuyo.
"Mommy loves you so," Chimilio said, nuzzling Capuyo's soft underbelly.
Owner and pet were separated Saturday when Chimilio and her husband arrived at KellyUSA, joining thousands of other evacuees forced out of the Gulf Coast region by Hurricane Katrina.
More than 100 pets — cats, dogs, birds and bunnies — are being housed temporarily at the Humane Society of Bexar County while their displaced owners get back on their feet.
Foster homes will be sought for the animals whose owners need longer-term care for them, said Cathy Rosenthal, a spokeswoman for the Humane Society SPCA of Bexar County.

Ex-humane society chief to help Katrina victims
Sun Herald
ENGLEWOOD -- Former Suncoast Humane Society CEO Debra Parsons-Drake couldn't bear the thought of letting more animals perish in the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina.
So she answered the call from the Humane Society of the United States to manage temporary animal holding areas outside of Hattiesburg, Miss.

East Tennessee helps animal victims of Hurricane Katrina
In the aftermath of Katrina, thousands of evacuees are seeking shelter here in Knoxville, but they're not alone. Their pets are also homeless. The Humane Society and Knox County's Disaster Animal Response team is making sure these animals aren't forgotten. Central Baptist Church has a Red Cross processing center for animal survivors. They're getting food and medical attention. From the processing center, animals are move to other locations. "The Humane Society will provide kennel space at local boarding kennels and foster homes until these individuals are able to get on their feet and be reunited with their pets," says the Humane Society’s Vicky Crosetti. Thursday through Sunday, Katrina survivors will be able to take their dogs and cats to a free vaccination clinic at the Humane Society's Adopt-a-Pet center on Kingston Pike.The clinic will be open from 11:00 a.m. to 2:00 p.m.

Searching For Pets After Katrina
CBS News - September 6, 2005
... Red Cross shelters, are coming to us for support and for their animals.". Mercer coordinates the shelter and care of nearly 1,000 pets made homeless by Katrina. ...

Michigan animal blood bank helps pets in hurricane-ravaged areas
WOOD-TV, MI - September 6, 2005
STOCKBRIDGE, Mich. A Michigan animal blood bank has turned its attention to animals affected by Hurricane Katrina, shipping 25 units of dog blood to Louisiana State University's veterinary school.
Midwest Animal Blood Services in Stockbridge sent a third of its weekly production from ten dogs to help the school care for pets evacuated from the New Orleans area. Blood donated by the bank's cats could be sent next.
The director of the blood bank says many cats and dogs survived the hurricane's initial blow, but need blood to recover from heatstroke and serious injuries.
She says now is the time for healthy pets to donate.
The Stockbridge blood bank is holding at least six blood drives through November in in Michigan.

Pet rescue in New Orleans is gathering steam
CTV.ca
Tue. Sep. 6 2005 8:58 AM ET

[This article published by CNN.com September 5 is an AP article that was originally published elsewhere some days ago and was picked up by many newspapers.]
Evacuees anguished at leaving pets
CNN
Monday, September 5, 2005; Posted: 4:48 p.m. EDT (20:48 GMT)
.. It's very distressing for people, wondering if their pets are isolated ... On Saturday, as Hurricane Katrina approached, both went to the hospital to help and took ...

Rescued Pets In Atlanta
WSBtv.com

Storm refugees in Atlanta learn their pets are alive
San Jose Mercury News

Dumb Friends League stops taking strays to focus on Katrina's ...
9NEWS.com

Troops churn through dangerous waters, seeking Katrina survivors
San Antonio Express (subscription), TX - September 6, 2005
[Excerpt]
But people weren't the only objects of rescue in the city.
In the fashionable Uptown area, west or upriver of the downtown business district and the Garden District, teams of animal rescuers waded through flooded streets looking for pets left without any assistance since the main evacuation.
Teams from Houston, San Diego, Colorado and other places, including a special six-person unit from the national headquarters of the ASPCA in New York, pulled rubber rafts filled with pet cages, first checking a list of homes that had reported trapped pets and looking for any other abandoned animals. They had permission to break into houses if necessary.
Once collected, the animals are taken to a special rescue truck at Gonzalez, according to Warren "Chief" Craig of the Essential Animal Services Team in Colorado.
As the rescue of humans and other living creatures went on, the mandatory evacuations continued across the devastated cityscape. National Guard and Army units patrolled streets, looking for survivors, picking them up wherever found and transporting them to the convention center.

Teams scramble to save Katrina's animal victims
St. Louis Post-Dispatch, MO - September 6, 2005
[Excerpt]
Rescue workers from the Humane Society of Missouri and other animal welfare rescue organizations around the nation are engaged in an uneven war to save Hurricane Katrina's animal victims. Although no area-wide assessments of animal loss were available Tuesday, mortality figures from rescue operations at flooded shelters and breeders' kennels suggested that the death toll will be enormous for this beleaguered, companion population left behind as the waters rose. A four-person team from the Missouri Humane Society helped a breeder of miniature pinschers in Pascagoula, Miss., to excavate 80 dogs from beneath mud and fallen trees, but 60 more perished in their flooded cages. Shelters in the affected area reported losses of 50 percent to 70 percent. Large-animal deaths had yet to be assessed as rescue teams penetrated deeper into devastated rural regions.

Katrina Animals Pets ~ September 6, 2005

No further posts will be made here in the interest of not duplicating efforts, always a goal of mine. Hope you obtain information from credible sources, check and double-check, stop the circulation of false and unsubstantiated information. And please, focus energies on helping all those involved.

The information in previous posts remains as a one-stop, valuable reference and record of August 28 to September 5.

Katrina Animals Pets ~ September 5, 2005

[See also
Katrina Animal Rescue Resources
Katrina Animal Rescue Staging Locations
Katrina Animals Pets - September 4, 2005
Katrina Animals Pets - September 3, 2005
Katrina Animals Pets - September 2, 2005
Hurricane Katrina Animals Pets (August 28-September 1, 2005)

Animal Advocates: The national animal rescue groups HAVE been allowed into New Orleans since September 4 (there were some rescues prior to that) as reported here previously. Let's focus energies on helping all involved.

Katrina National Animal Rescue Groups - Katrina Animal Action Daily Updates:

* Noah’s Wish
* UAN/EARS
* HSUS
* Best Friends
* ASPCA
* AHA

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

From United Animal Nations (UAN)/EARS Forum
Snowball is safe!
[Reference: news article posted on this blog September 2:
Misery Grows for Those Left in New Orleans
Friday September 2, 2005 6:31 PM Associated Press Writer
[Excerpt]
Pets were forbitten on the buses. On Thursday, when an officer confiscated a dog, a little boy cried out ``Snowball! Snowball!'' until he vomited.National Guard officers said dogs were being taken to a stairwell in the New Orleans Center, a shopping mall near the Superdome, and given food and water. They feared some of them might have escaped, and two small dogs were seen wandering nearby streets. ]

New!
Austin Hotline for evacuees to Austin needing pet assistance: 512-646-PETS

Suburban N.O. parish lets residents in
Jefferson Parish open from dawn to dusk
CNN.com
Traffic began moving into the parish west of New Orleans at about 6 a.m. A curfew was set for 6 p.m., and residents were told they could stay until Wednesday.
In Jefferson Parish, residents were allowed back as long as they showed a valid ID proving residency, had food, had a full tank of gas and didn't drink the water.

Local dog group hopes to help Katrina's ‘silent victims' ...
Lowell Sun, MA
Gagnon and the 60 members of the Agility is Really Fun for Fido (or ARFF) Agility Club, based in Carlisle, used their dog show over the weekend at the 4-H Fairgrounds in Westford to raise money toward the animal-relief fund.
So far, the group has raised several hundred dollars and they hope to join forces with other animal agencies to raise more. The money will be sent to the Houston SPCA (www.spcahouston.org) and earmarked for LA SPCA.

Press Release Yahoo
Source: American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
Animal Welfare Triage Station Set Up on Outskirts of New Orleans
Monday September 5, 10:46 am ET
GONZALEZ, La., Sept. 5 /PRNewswire/ --
WHY: Thousands of domesticated animals have been left to fend for
themselves because of the devastation from Hurricane Katrina.
Without food and clean water these animals will perish.
WHAT: The ASPCA® (American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to
Animals®) along with other animal welfare agencies have set
up a triage station to aid lost and abandoned animals affected
by Hurricane Katrina.
WHERE: Lamar-Dixon Exposition Center
9039 S Saint Landry Ave
Gonzales, LA 70737
WHEN: Starting on Monday, September 5, 2005 until the last animal is
found and cared for
WHO: The ASPCA along with other animal welfare organizations
CONTACT: Eric Rayvid
Media Relations
ASPCA
917-861-8290
Eric can get you in touch with people in the field
Photo opportunities:
* Triage station
* Animals being treated
* A limited number of journalists will be allowed to follow animal
control officers into New Orleans to film actual animal rescues
To donate to the ASPCA Disaster Relief Fund, please go to http://www.aspca.org/ or call 866-275-3923 or mail your contribution to us at ASPCA Disaster Relief Fund 424 East 92nd New York 10128. 100% of donations will go to the animal relief efforts.
Source: American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals

Pets Stranded By Katrina Need Homes In N. Texas
NBC5i.com, TX
FORT WORTH, Texas -- Volunteers in New Orleans are making their rounds picking up pets left homeless by Hurricane Katrina.
In many cases, pet owners had to leave their animals behind because saving human lives was first priority. Dozens of pets are now arriving in North Texas and need new homes.
Animal shelters are already packed, but they're trying to make more room for all of the homeless pets.
The best way to help is to either adopt or donate money.
You can sign up at 1-800-Save-A-Pet, or donate to the Houston SPCA.

Stranded pets facing starvation
Miami Herald, FL
... She named the dog Katrina. ... Ron Forman, the chief executive officer of Audubon Nature Institute, said his animal attractions were in bad shape, especially the ...

From UAN/EARS list:
Additional Katrina Emergency Animal Shelters:
Hirsch Coliseum at Louisiana State Fairgrounds - Shreveport Louisiana
Natchitoches Animal Shelter (FULL) - Natchitoches Louisiana

Help Gulf Coast animals with gift to local group
OregonLive.com, OR
VANCOUVER -- Animal lovers who want to help pets disrupted by Hurricane Katrina can send or drop off donations at the Humane Society for Southwest Washington.
Contributions of cash and checks will be sent to Humane Society chapters and other shelters throughout the Gulf Coast -- from Louisiana to Florida's Panhandle -- hit last week by Katrina.

Not gonna go without pets
New York Daily News
As of yesterday, the North Shore Animal League had taken in 19 dogs, 16 puppies, 11 kittens and seven cats from New Orleans.
"We assisted the other shelters that were down there already - we took their animals that were already up for adoption. That freed up cage capacity to take in displaced animals," said North Shore call center manager Byron Logan
Sunday, September 4, 2005; 9:48 p.m.

Latest HSUS Report: Sunday, September 4, 2005; 9:48 p.m.
Rescue Teams Struggle to Reach Stranded Pets in Time
In their first foray into the embattled city of New Orleans, members of the HSUS Disaster Animal Relief Team (DART), together with animal control staff from the Louisiana SPCA, targeted animals stranded at the Superdome as their priority goal. There, they rescued dozens of animals relinquished or abandoned by desperate evacuees who fled the city to escape Katrina’s rage.

Katrina Animal Rescue Group Staging Locations

[See also: Katrina Emergency Animal Shelters / Katrina Temporary Animal Shelters from Katrina Animal Rescue Resources]


By group alphabetical

* American Humane Association (AHA) - Jackson MS; Lafayette LA; Gonzales LA
Strike team leader is from Animal Rescue League of Boston (ARL)
September 4: allowed in New Orleans LA

* American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (ASPCA) - to Jackson MS
September 5, 2005: now allowed in New Orleans

* ARL of Boston - Jackson MS fairgrounds

* Best Friends Animal Sanctuary - Tylertown MS (St. Francis Animal Sanctuary); Franklinton LA (Fairgrounds)
Paul Berry - Tylertown MS; New Orleans LA

* Humane Society of the United States - from Jackson MS south to Hattiesburg MS
Transporting from New Orleans LA to Houston TX
September 4: allowed in New Orleans LA
Gonzales LA
September 12: From Jackson and Hattiesburg MS to Gautier MS, Gulfport MS, Waveland MS

* Louisiana SPCA - Gonzales LA (horse farm)

* Louisiana Humane - evacuated to Mississippi

* Noah’s Wish - Slidell LA (north of New Orleans)

* United Animal Nation (UAN)/EARS - Jackson MS; Houston TX; Monroe LA


By area alphabetical

LOUISIANA [State Map]

Franklinton (Fairgrounds) - Best Friends
Gonzales - Louisiana SPCA, HSUS, AHA
Lafayette - AHA
Monroe - UAN
New Orleans - Best Friends, Paul Berry; September 4: HSUS/DART and AHA; September 5: ASPCA
Slidell - Noah’s Wish

MISSISSIPPI [State Map]

Hattiesburg, Gulfport, Gautier, Waveland - HSUS/DART (September 12)
Jackson - AHA, ASPCA, HSUS, UAN/EARS, Animal Rescue League of Boston (ARL)
Tylertown - Best Friends (St. Francis Animal Sanctuary)

TEXAS [State Map]

Houston - HSUS/DART, UAN/EARS

Katrina Animals Pets ~ September 4, 2005

[See also
Katrina Animal Rescue Resources
Katrina Animals Pets - September 3, 2005
Katrina Animals Pets - September 2, 2005
Hurricane Katrina Animals Pets (August 28-September 1, 2005)]



National Horse Protection Coalition
First Load of Hay Feed and Supplies On Its Way
To arrive at Lamar Dixon Expo Center in Gonzales, Louisiana late Sunday evening or early Monday morning.

Has Anyone Seen My Sea Lions? Dolphins?
WJRT, MI
... These are domesticated animals and some are captive-borns, and they don't have the hunting skills," he said. Once Solangi realized how severe Katrina was going ...

New Orleans zoo animals survive Katrina's wrath
Reuters AlertNet, UK
... feared dead in the rubble of storm-shattered New Orleans, but at the New Orleans zoo only three of its 1,400 animals died in the wrath of Hurricane Katrina. ...

New Orleans' animals suffering in aftermath of Katrina
Centre Daily Times, PA
... Not everyone in New Orleans left pets behind ... Stray pets have formed packs and are roaming the abandoned city, scavenging for whatever ... She named the dog Katrina. ...

Labor dept. gets emergency grant; Treasurer helps rescue pets
Times Picayune, LA
BATON ROUGE, La. (AP) — State Treasurer John Kennedy is helping some evacuees make sure their pets are cared for while they're finding shelter in other cities and states.
Kennedy was helping people board buses Saturday on the Interstate 10 overpass leading to the causeway that bridges Lake Ponchartrain when some evacuees began refusing to leave their pets behind.
"One woman told me 'I've lost my house, my job, my car and I am not turning my dog loose to starve,'" Kennedy said.
Kennedy and other volunteers took down the evacuees' names and their pets' names and persuaded the Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals to come pick them up and take them to the Lamar Dixon center in Gonzales.
The SPCA picked up two cats and 15 dogs, including a yellow lab, German shepherd mix Kennedy found tied up far underneath the overpass next to an unopened can of dog food with a sign that read "Please take care of my dog, his name is Chucky."
Kennedy, who has two dogs he took in as strays off the street, said he helped out because he knows the pain of losing a pet.
"There's no way I'd turn my dogs loose," he said. "It just wouldn't happen."

They wouldn t leave without their pets
HOUMA -- Harold McDonald was racing to escape drowning in the floodwaters Hurricane Katrina swept into New Orleans when something made him turn around.
Houma, Louisiana Newspaper - The Courier
[Excerpt]
Houma has received hundreds of human evacuees, a number of whom refused to leave devastated New Orleans without their animal friends. Several local organizations and businesses have pitched in, supplying volunteers, pet supplies, food, water and foster homes. At least 50 animals are spread among the East Park Fire Station, the Evergreen Cajun Center in Gray and the Terrebonne Parish Animal Shelter, said shelter manager Valerie Robinson. Another roughly 25 pets rescued from a Gretna veterinarian’s office by the Terrebonne shelter have been dispersed among local veterinarian offices. The local vets are also treating wounded or sick refugee animals.

Lobsters flee from Katrina
Miami Herald, FL
... Beach scoops them up -- scores of them -- Florida spiny lobsters on a rarely observed, post-Katrina mass march. ... ''I would suspect these animals were displaced ...

HSUS Disaster Teams To Reach Stranded Pets in New Orleans
September 3, 9:16 p.m.
Members of the HSUS National Disaster Animal Response Team (DART) were expected to enter New Orleans alongside staff members of the Louisiana Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (LSPCA) on Sunday morning, September 4. It’s a major turning point for pets and other animals stranded in the city, which had been closed off to our animal rescuers by federal and state authorities who had been closely controlling access in attempts to handle the confusion and danger that has beset the city.
As HSUS rescuer Diane Webber put it earlier in the day, “It may be too late for some. It may be just in time for others.”

American Humane’s Animal Emergency Services cleared to enter Louisiana!
Updated -- Sept. 3, 2005. Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco has granted the American Humane Association permission to enter the state to provide rescue and veterinary services in the areas impacted by Hurricane Katrina!

Sept 3 -- Clearance given for large-scale rescue in New Orleans
Best Friends
September 4, 2005 : 1:26 AM ET
However, Paul Berry of Best Friends Animals Society has been working to rescue animals in the city for the past two days alongside Bert Smith, Director of Animal Services for Jefferson Parish, and his staff. Smith started sweeps Saturday to pick up animals from the streets of New Orleans, focusing on locations where evacuees had been required to leave their animals before boarding buses.

Not all victims human
Bradenton Herald

AZA Accredited Zoos and Aquariums Rally to Aid New Orleans Zoo and ...
U.S. Newswire (press release), DC
September 2, ,2005 Silver Spring MD -- - Members of the American Zoo and Aquarium Association (AZA) are responding to their ...

Workers forced to evacuate New Orleans aquarium but not the zoo
Columbus Ledger-Enquirer, GA
BY WILLIAM MULLEN. CHICAGO - (KRT) - Whether marine mammals and fishes are being fed and cared for at New Orleans' Aquarium of the ...

Zoos coping with damage, helicopter roar
Chicago Tribune
Zoos are making do but fate of sea creatures unknown
Chicago Tribune

Pet rescue plans under way in wake of Katrina
Shreveport Times, LA
... that established pet refugee centers throughout Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina now are ... homes in Jefferson Parish late Friday to save pets left behind in the ...

What of the pets lost, left behind after Katrina?
St. Petersburg Times, FL
... There are hotels that accept pets. There's always people that stay home with their pets, which a lot of people did (during Hurricane Katrina)," she said. ...

Animal rescuers set to help pets displaced by Katrina
Connecticut Post, CT
... "When you multiply the number of families affected by this disaster, the number of abandoned pets is monumental," veterinarian Arnold Goldman says. ...

Katrina Animal Rescue Resources ~ Hotlines, Shelters, Action Updates

Katrina Animals Pets News ~ September 20 to August 28, 2005.


Katrina Animal Rescue Resources is a recap of previously posted information on this weblog and has been updated frequently. Current as of September 21, 2005. You must verify resources and criteria.

Katrina Lost Animal Hotlines / Katrina Stranded Animal Hotlines
Katrina Emergency Animal Shelters / Katrina Temporary Animal Shelters
Katrina Equine/Horse Relief - Shelter Facilities and Veterinary Services / Report Stranded Animals
Katrina National Animal Rescue Groups - Katrina Animal Action Updates
Katrina Animal Rescue Staging Locations
Volunteer for Katrina Animal Rescue
Katrina Foster List
Shipping or Mailing to Katrina Disaster Areas
State Maps: Louisiana :: Mississippi
Louisiana Road Closures (LSP)
See also Animal Rescue Resources on Katrina Help Wiki

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Katrina Lost Animal Hotlines / Katrina Stranded Animal Hotlines
See additional reporting info below this section.

* Louisiana
[See updates below for LSU Vet Med (Sept 12) and Petfinder.com / Animal Emergency Response Network (Sept 9)]

* New Orleans, Louisiana
CONFINED PETS STILL IN DISASTER AREA
Beginning on September 1, residents who left pets in their homes may call a hot line to leave information about the number of animals, species, and their confined location.
The New Orleans Louisiana Lost Animal Hotline is 225-578-6111. [9/7 This number goes to LSU/Parker Coliseum and the several times I called it, a message stated lines were busy, then gave various other places to call.]
Addition: Louisiana residents If you are in Louisiana, please call toll-free (888) 773-6489 between 8:00 am and 6:00 pm. All others, please call (225) 925-3980 between 8:00 am and 6:00 pm (a toll-free number for out-of-state callers is being established).
[Update 9/7 and 9/8: I was able to reach an actual person at 225-925-3980 (animal rescue) within 9am to 6pm LA time. That number is NOT listed on the LSU School of Vet Med site. On the 888-773-6489 number, I received a message "unable to complete as dialed" but I understood this number to be toll-free and for use WITHIN Louisiana; I am not in Louisiana. I have asked someone IN Louisiana to try the number.]
[See also Louisiana State University School of Veterinary Medicine
Hurricane Katrina Emergency Animal Shelter at LSU
John M. Parker Coliseum
The Louisiana Department of Agriculture and Forestry, the Louisiana Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (LA/SPCA), the Louisiana Veterinary Medical Association (LVMA), the Louisiana Animal Control Association (LACA), and the LSU School of Veterinary Medicine (SVM) are managing animal evacuations and recovery plans for New Orleans pets and displaced animals. ]
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

New week of September 18: Photos of Rescued Animals at Lamar-Dixon Expo Center

September 12, 2005
Change on http://www.vetmed.lsu.edu/ LSU Vet Med webpage late yesterday (Sept 12):For each category except one*, people are now directed to contact the online Animal Emergency Response Network which is the Petfinder.com database.
* Evacuees Seeking Pets That Were Boarded in Veterinary Clinics - This category contact info remains the same.
Also, several days ago, a reminder that this directive was added to the section:
Request a Rescue of a Pet Left Behind in the Disaster Area
"Residents are now being allowed back into certain parts of the Greater New Orleans areas. While we will do everything we can to rescue as many animals as possible, your pets will have a better chance if you can get in and rescue them yourselves. Please watch the news media for announcements of which areas residents may re-enter.If you do rescue your pet yourself after requesting rescue through this shelter, please notify us so that we can remove your name from the waiting list."
~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~

9/8/05 from Louisiana SPCA
(225) 647-0712 LA/SPCA Animal Search and Rescue (Orleans Parish)
(504) 733-8572 Jefferson Feed, Pet and Garden Center (Jefferson Parish)

* Horse Helpline - 225-578-9501 (Louisiana)

* Jackson, Mississippi area only:
Call 1-800-252-0923 to report missing or found pets.

* In Mississippi, an animal disaster hotline is in operation. The number is 1-888-722-3106. [9/8/05]

* Texas

Austin Hotline for evacuees to Austin needing pet assistance: 512-646-PETS

Houston Hotline for evacuees needing shelter for pets in Houston area: 713-802-0555
The Houston SPCA is now accepting animals from storm victims staying in Houston Area Shelters.

Dallas Metro: If you have an animal and need a place for it to stay, call 972-562-7297 ext 123.

Wildlife Hotline 205-621-3333 (an Alabama number)

Additional Reporting of Katrina Lost, Stranded Animals

Petfinder Update: Tuesday, 20 September 2005, 10:00 am EST
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

September 9, 2005: The Petfinder.com database to help Katrina pets is now online:
Animal Emergency Response Network
This is for pet owners/guardians: to request pet rescue, find foster or temporary care for their pet, find lost pets or request help with their pets.
You can sign up to foster or volunteer.
You can report found pets in the diasaster region.
Rescue workers can search the database.
Petfinder.com Update: [katrina.petfinder.com]
Tuesday, September 6, 2005, 7:00 am
Our programmers are currently hard at work developing a comprehensive database to aid the pets affected by Hurricane Katrina. We plan to have it operational within the next few days.
National Hotline for reporting lost pets 1-888-pets-911 [not sure how this fits into the mix]

* United Animal Nations (UAN) / Emergency Animal Rescue Services (EARS)
REPORTING LOST ANIMALS:
If you need to report a lost animal or an animal needing rescue in LOUISIANA, please call toll-free (888) 773-6489 between 8:00 am and 6:00 pm or e-mail Katrina@ldaf.louisiana.gov. For Mississippi animals, we are collecting rescue requests from evacuees and others who are unsure of the whereabouts of their animals. Those requests are daily being compiled with requests reported to other organizations with whom we are coordinating to form a master database. Once teams are deployed, these requests will be forwarded to those in the area who can perform rescue efforts. Submit an online form with necessary information [here].

* ASPCA American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals
People who left pets stranded in their homes can contact the ASPCA at 212-876-7700, ext. 4700.
September 3, 2005 Press Release: To help aid the people affected by Hurricane Katrina, the ASPCA has set up a database to help families find their lost pets. In order to register your pet, please send your contact information and a description of the pet including name and breed to disaster@aspca.org or register via telephone at (212)876-7700, ext 4700. Pictures of lost pets are unable to be accepted at this time.

* Best Friends is coordinating efforts with rescue groups to find animals that have been left in Louisiana and Mississippi homes.
Please get the word out to anyone you know who had to leave behind an animal that they can write to hurricane@bestfriends.org or call 435.644.3965 ext.4455 and leave the following information:
Name and current contact information
Address where animal was left
Name of pet
Description of pet (species, breed, distinguishing characteristics)
Photo if available.
We will get this information to emergency command posts in the hope of getting to these houses and getting the animals out. We are doing everything we can to try to make this happen.

* Humane Society of the United States (HSUS)
Individuals who learn of stranded pets are urged to call the HSUS phone bank at 1-800-HUMANE-1, provided they have location information that can be relayed to the teams in the field.

* Alley Cat Allies
If you know of cats, caregivers, or a rescue group in need, call Alley Cat Allies at 240-482-1980, ext. 125, and ask for Vanessa or e-mail alleycat@alleycat.org

Displaced pets finding shelter, too
Dallas Morning News (subscription), TX
TEXAS Resources:
* If you have an animal and need a place for it to stay, call 972-562-7297 ext 123.
* If you left an animal behind and want to alert rescuers to its location, call 1-800-HUMANE-1.
* If you want to be a foster family for an animal needing a temporary home in North Texas, call 214-651-9611 ext. 123.
* If you want to adopt an animal - which would help make room for animals needing temporary quarters - call 1-888-ANIMALS.
The SPCA of Texas is reducing its adoption fees to $40 for all animals Sunday in order to help make room for animals needing temporary shelter after their owners were displaced by Hurricane Katrina. (Usual fees ranged from $80 for cats to $185 for small dogs.) To take advantage of this offer, call 1-888-ANIMALS or go online at www.spca.org for shelter locations. Shelters will be open Sunday from noon until 6 p.m.

Media Advisory -- Alert to Pet Owners in Slidell, La.: Come to Heritage Park to Claim Rescued Animals or Report Stranded Pets
PrimeZone (press release), CA
[Excerpt]
NEW YORK, Sept. 3, 2005 (PRIMEZONE) -- Noah's Wish, a not-for-profit organization that works exclusively to rescue and shelter animals in disasters, is rescuing animals from evacuated homes in Slidell, Louisiana. The pets are being housed at a temporary animal shelter and Noah's Wish is working with Slidell Animal Control to coordinate the rescue of hundreds of abandoned and stranded pets in the city of Slidell. The Animal Control building sustained extensive damage during Hurricane Katrina. Noah's Wish staff and volunteers on the ground do not have phone, cell phone or web access at this time and are unable to communicate outside the Slidell area. Noah's Wish is asking that pet owners from Slidell not call or send email, as communication is limited. Pet owners who live in Slidell need to come to Heritage Park to report a lost or stranded pet. Noah's Wish staff will be at Heritage Park from 8am to 7pm every day for at least the next 3 weeks. Pet owners must come in person to determine if their pet is at the shelter, as the number of pets being rescued is expected to reach the hundreds.
This temporary shelter will have the ability to house hundreds of animals. Trained Noah's Wish volunteers, veterinarians, and veterinary technicians will work around the clock to provide medical services, care and much-needed love and affection to these traumatized animals. Pet owners may pick up food and supplies from Noah's Wish volunteers in Heritage Park. Donations of pet food, blankets, dog kennels etc. may be left at Heritage Park.

Katrina Emergency Animal Shelters (from News and UAN list)
See additional shelters below this section.

LOUISIANA [State Map]

Abbeville: Boys and Girls Club, Fruit of the Loom Factory, 337-893-0235
Alexandria: Farmers Market, 225-578-9900
Baton Rouge: LSU Agriculture Center/Parker Coliseum, 225-578-9900
Franklinton: Fairgrounds
Gonzales: Lamar Dixon Horse Expo Center, 225-413-8813
Lafayette: Blackham Coliseum (near Cajundome), 337-291-5644
Lake Charles: Calcasieu Parish Animal Services, 337-439-8879
Lake Charles: Lake Charles Civic Center
Monroe: Monroe Civic Center (small animals), 225-578-9900
Monroe: Ike Hamilton Center (large animals), 225-578-9900
Natchitoches: Natchitoches Animal Shelter (FULL)
Shreveport: Hirsch Coliseum at Louisiana State Fairgrounds

MISSISSIPPI [State Map]

Gautier: Jackson County Animal Shelter

Hattiesburg: Forrest County Multipurpose Center,952 Sullivan Drive, Barn E
Hattiesburg, MS 39401

Jackson: Fairgrounds/Coliseum

TEXAS [State Map]

Austin: Animal Staging Area identified (Human shelter is at Toney Berger Center)


Additional Animal Shelters from News: Temporary or Emergency or Assisting

ALABAMA

Various cities: VCA Animal Hospitals, 1-800-VCA-PETS or www.vcapets.com
(free boarding on a space available basis to house pets from areas hardest hit by hurricane)
Montgomery: Montgomery County HS (taking evacuees animals)
Cullman: Dog Gone Resort, 734-4256 (offering free boarding for pets of hurricane victims; 10 minutes from downtown Cullman)

FLORIDA

Various cities: VCA Animal Hospitals, 1-800-VCA-PETS or www.vcapets.com
(free boarding on a space available basis to house pets from areas hardest hit by hurricane)

LOUISIANA

Shreveport: LSU (Tent shelter outside of gym; human Red Cross Shelter)
Slidell: Warehouse, 1325 Bayou Lane (next to Heritage Park)

TEXAS

Dallas: Reunion Arena
Dallas: Dallas SPCA McKinney Facility, Pet Haven
Longview: Maude Cobb Convention & Activity Center (Animals and livestock)
Texarkana: Southwest Center grounds
Various cities: VCA Animal Hospitals, 1-800-VCA-PETS or www.vcapets.com
(free boarding on a space available basis to house pets from areas hardest hit by hurricane)


Katrina Equine / Horse Relief
United States Equine Federation
* Place Your Facility on the USEF Hurricane Equine Relief List
* Download USEF Hurricane Equine Relief List
(List of Shelter Facilities and Veterinary Services for Hurricane Katrina Equine Refugees)

* Horse Helpline - 225-578-9501 (Louisiana)

TheHorse.com Creates Emergency Database to Report Animals Stranded By Hurricane Katrina
TheHorse.com, KY - September 7, 2005 1pm
In response to a request from the American Veterinary Medical Association’s Veterinary Medical Assistance Teams (VMATs), http://www.thehorse.com/ has created a database for citizens to report stranded animals in Louisiana, Alabama, and Mississippi. This list will be used by the VMATs to direct their searches for large and small animals for rescue.
If you were forced to leave pets or livestock in hurricane-stricken areas, please visit http://www.thehorse.com/ and fill out the available form. [click at left on Report Stranded Animals or View Listed Animals. These submissions will be reviewed by our staff, then posted ASAP on the web site, where VMATs will access them.
Be as complete as possible about the location, number, and types of animals left stranded and include current contact information so team members can contact you if they recover your animals or have questions.
Remember: Most signs are gone. Help rescuers find your pets and livestock by being thorough in your directions; include crossroads, firegate or 911 identifying markers, and GPS coordinates if you have them.


Katrina National Animal Rescue Groups - Katrina Animal Action Updates:

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

Volunteer for Katrina Animal Rescue

ASPCA
ASPCA has set up a database for people who would like to volunteer with the animal relief efforts. Please register via email at disaster@aspca.org or via telephone at (212) 876-7700, ext 4700. Leave your contact information and special skills you possess to help with animal relief.
Also online form: Hurricane Katrina Volunteer Registration
[This includes volunteer for foster care - see also Foster section below.]

Best Friends Activity
Check this section regularly for their needs.
VOLUNTEERS NEEDED IMMEDIATELY!
September 4, 2005 : 4:23 PM ET
Best Friends is looking for volunteers who are trained, experienced shelter workers with emergency rescue experience or animal control officers, to help with the rescue of animals in the disaster zone. If you are available, please call 435.644.3965 ext. 4242.

Any animal handling professionals or animal control officers who wish to assist with search and rescue missions going into flooded areas, please visit the Louisiana Animal Control Association Newsblog at www.lacanews.blogspot.com for more information. Please note: this will be a dangerous, dirty job and not one that members of the general public can assist us with. Only trained professionals can be
used for this task.

Katrina Foster List

* ASPCA
ASPCA has set up a database for people who would like to volunteer (includes fostering) with the animal relief efforts. Please register via email at disaster@aspca.org or via telephone at (212) 876-7700, ext 4700. Leave your contact information and special skills you possess to help with animal relief.
Also online form: Hurricane Katrina Volunteer Registration

* 1-800-Save-A-Pet.com is compiling a fostering list to share with ASPCA and animal disaster groups on the ground.
Katrina Animal Foster Home Sign-up
We have offered to put together a database of foster homes for the ASPCA disaster teams and other organizations working on the front lines, and they have accepted our offer.
If you live outside of the region affected by the hurricane, you are still welcome and encouraged to sign up. Please know, though, that you will be expected to provide a way to transport the pet(s) to you. If you are asked to travel to the region to pick up your foster pet(s), you will be responsible for all travel costs, arrangements, and accommodations during your trip.


Shipping/Mailing to Katrina Disaster Areas
Katrina Service Updates

United States Postal Service (USPS)

United Parcel Service (UPS)

Katrina Animals Pets ~ September 3, 2005

[See also Hurricane Katrina Animals Pets at catsinthenews.blogspot.com/2005/09/hurricane-katrina-animals-pets.html]


[Note: Animal resources included in news articles are cross-posted to Katrina Animal Rescue Resources.]


Pets In Gulf Coast Region Getting Help
WCPO, OH
On Saturday a caravan full of supplies for pets and animals is on its way from Colorado to the Gulf Coast region hit by Hurricane Katrina.
The Colorado Humane Society says it received an overwhelming response for pet carriers, food and other supplies to help dogs, cats and other animals. lost or abandoned because of the hurricane.

Taking paws to save pets left behind
Newsday, NY
... in an effort to save dogs, cats and other creatures left adrift by Hurricane Katrina. "People were told when they evacuated to leave their pets behind," said ...

Katrina Evacuees Distraught Over Pets
Washington Post, United States
... 3, 2005 and they talked about having to leave their pets in New Orleans. ... "It's very distressing for people, wondering if their pets are isolated or starving.". ...

Media Advisory -- Alert to Pet Owners in Slidell, La.: Come to ...
PrimeZone (press release), CA -
[Excerpt]
NEW YORK, Sept. 3, 2005 (PRIMEZONE) -- Noah's Wish, a not-for-profit organization that works exclusively to rescue and shelter animals in disasters, is rescuing animals from evacuated homes in Slidell, Louisiana. The pets are being housed at a temporary animal shelter and Noah's Wish is working with Slidell Animal Control to coordinate the rescue of hundreds of abandoned and stranded pets in the city of Slidell. The Animal Control building sustained extensive damage during Hurricane Katrina. Noah's Wish staff and volunteers on the ground do not have phone, cell phone or web access at this time and are unable to communicate outside the Slidell area. Noah's Wish is asking that pet owners from Slidell not call or send email, as communication is limited. Pet owners who live in Slidell need to come to Heritage Park to report a lost or stranded pet. Noah's Wish staff will be at Heritage Park from 8am to 7pm every day for at least the next 3 weeks. Pet owners must come in person to determine if their pet is at the shelter, as the number of pets being rescued is expected to reach the hundreds.
This temporary shelter will have the ability to house hundreds of animals. Trained Noah's Wish volunteers, veterinarians, and veterinary technicians will work around the clock to provide medical services, care and much-needed love and affection to these traumatized animals. Pet owners may pick up food and supplies from Noah's Wish volunteers in Heritage Park. Donations of pet food, blankets, dog kennels etc. may be left at Heritage Park.

KATRINA: SLIDELL PETS RESCUED
KTAL-TV, LA
Park from 8am to 7pm every day for at least the next 3 weeks. Pet. as the number of pets being rescued is expected to reach the hundreds. animals. ...

Animal Shelter To Keep Pets For Hurricane Evacuees In Charlotte
WSOCtv.com, NC
Charlotte, NC -- Charlotte's animal control center is reaching out to the victims of Hurricane Katrina. Shelters for people will not accept pets--but families ...

Pet rescue plans underway in wake of Katrina
PensacolaNewsJournal.com, FL
... that established pet refugee centers throughout Louisiana after Hurricane Katrina now are ... homes in Jefferson Parish late Friday to save pets left behind in the ...

New Orleans Superdome Emptied; 7,000 New Troops Sent (Update2)
BloombergThree nurses refused to leave because they're looking after 300 animals and pets left behind by patients and staff.

Displaced pets finding shelter, too
Dallas Morning News (subscription), TX
[Excerpts]
The Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals of Texas has already accepted almost 200 animals and is making room for more.
They’re a combination of transfers from other SPCA facilities in Louisiana and Houston and animals belonging to owners who are staying in shelters or other accommodations in the Dallas area.
The SPCA groups are doing all they can to keep animals close to their owners, said James Bias, president of the Dallas-based SPCA of Texas.
People weren’t allowed to keep their pets with them at the Astrodome, so Houston-area SPCA workers had to transport them to offsite shelters, he said. In order to make room for displaced pets, the Houston shelters transferred hundreds of their existing animal up for adoption to North Texas.
Fortunately, the Reunion Arena in Dallas is letting people stay with their pets, and the SPCA has provided crates to help keep them contained, Mr. Bias said.
[Feral Cat Blog! Note: The following info from this news article will be cross-posted to my Katrina Animal Rescue Resources page.]
If you have an animal and need a place for it to stay, call 972-562-7297 ext 123.
If you left an animal behind and want to alert rescuers to its location, call 1-800-HUMANE-1.
If you want to be a foster family for an animal needing a temporary home in North Texas, call 214-651-9611 ext. 123.
If you want to adopt an animal - which would help make room for animals needing temporary quarters - call 1-888-ANIMALS.
The SPCA of Texas is reducing its adoption fees to $40 for all animals Sunday in order to help make room for animals needing temporary shelter after their owners were displaced by Hurricane Katrina. (Usual fees ranged from $80 for cats to $185 for small dogs.) To take advantage of this offer, call 1-888-ANIMALS or go online at www.spca.org for shelter locations. Shelters will be open Sunday from noon until 6 p.m.

Animal welfare groups rescue abandoned pets
USA Today
Animal welfare groups, which have been barred from entering most flood-affected areas of the Gulf Coast because of safety concerns, have finally reached parts of southern Mississippi and Louisiana to set up shelters and move hundreds of imperiled dogs and cats to safety.
Rescue teams from the Humane Society of the U.S. on Friday moved 120 dogs and cats from Gulfport to a staging area in Jackson, HSUS president Wayne Pacelle said Saturday. Another 500 are being moved from St. Tammany Parish, just north of New Orleans, he said. “The needs are enormous,’’ he said.
While Hurricane Katrina's impact on people remains a "national and international trauma,’’ Pacelle said, “the animal situation is another massive saga that's still unfolding."
About 200 animals drowned after the Humane Society of South Mississippi's shelter in Gulfport was destroyed in the hurricane, he said. In Harrison County, rescuers found one woman who took refuge in an evacuated structure with seven dogs and eight cats afer her own house was destroyed, Pacelle said. "There’s a dead man on the roof,’’ he said.
Best Friends Animal Society, working with Jefferson Parish Animal Control, picked up more than 100 dogs and cats found wandering the New Orleans streets on Friday and moved them to a shelter in nearby Tylertown, Miss., said Best Friends director Michael Mountain.
A team of animal experts from Best Friends, which operates a huge animal sanctuary in Kanab, Utah, (http://www.bestfriends.org/) was arriving Saturday at the St. Francis Animal Sanctuary in Tylertown with food, generators, fencing, satellite phones and fuel, he said.
St. Francis is sheltering about 600 animals, Mountain said. “They cannot accept any more until our team arrives from here with supplies of all kinds to build out the sanctuary.’’
From there, animals will be reunited with their owners, place in foster homes or be put up for adoption.
The Louisiana SPCA was to begin going house-to-house today in New Orleans to rescue animals stranded when their owners evacuated the city before the hurricane, and other groups also are hoping to start moving into the city, as security concerns diminish.
Animal rescue groups have gotten calls from pet owners desperate for someone to rescue animals they’d left behind. “People are frantically calling and telling us their cat is on the third floor of an apartment in New Orleans, or their horses were left in a pasture,’’ Pacelle said.
In many cases, owners evacuated, but left animals inside homes or garages with food and water because they expected to return in a day or so. “Who would have thought they won’t be able to pump water out for 90 days? Who would have thought New Orleans would be depopulated?’’ Pacelle said.
Animal lovers across the country have poured out support, offering everything from dog toys to cat food and volunteering to help in the rescue or to provide foster care for displaced pets. They’ve donated $3.5 million online at http://www.hsus.org/, far more than has been given in any previous disaster, Pacelle said.
Funds are needed not only for immediate rescues, but also long-term rebuilding and support of shelters throughout the region.
HSUS does not own or operate shelters, but focuses on education and advocacy. It also has been active in disaster relief for a decade, Pacelle said, and has dozens of trained staff members along with hundreds of trained volunteers in the flood region already or prepared to go there.
Other animal groups are also helping:
• The American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, http://www.aspca.org/, is helping local animal groups in Austin, Texas, which are housing pets of flood evacuees who are in a Red Cross shelter. It is sending teams of veterinarians and technicians to Jackson, along with a mobile vet clinic.
• The Houston SPCA, http://www.spcahouston.org/, is housing more than 600 animals evacuated from flood areas.
• The American Humane Association, www.americanhumane.org, has received 2,000 requests for animal rescues from the flood-ravaged region and has sent its Animal Emergency Services rescue rig to join other responders in Mississippi.
The organizations say donations of money and supplies are needed, as are volunteers to help in disaster relief, to provide transportation for animals and to offer temporary or permanent homes for animals.

Welfare groups try to save pets
WAVY-TV, VA
The International Fund for Animal Welfare says at least 300 dogs have been taken from New Orleans to Houston, where they're being cared for by the S-P-C-A. And hundreds more may be arriving soon.
The group says many of the dogs were smuggled into shelters and evacuation buses by people fleeing New Orleans. It's working with the S-P-C-A to set up temporary animal shelters.
Meanwhile, members of the Humane Society's Disaster Animal Response Team have worked their way into stricken areas of Louisiana and Mississippi. They're following up reports of animals locked in homes, kennels and veterinary clinics.
They're also relocating 120 dogs and cats evacuated from a destroyed shelter in Gulfport, Mississippi.

The battle for New Orleans
Newsday, NY
[Excerpt]
Robert Iaccarino, 50, a chef at Nardo's trattoria near the Audubon Zoo, stayed for four days guarding the restaurant until Friday, when he became increasingly afraid of looters and decided to return to his French Quarter apartment. He found it mostly intact. Leaving the city before the hurricane was out of the question, he said, because he owns only a Vespa scooter, which he figured wouldn't have gotten him far. So he stayed, he said, because of a "combination of desperation and loyalty to my job."
For the first three days, Iaccarino said, he cooked bacon, sausage and eggs on the restaurant's still-functioning gas burners and fed the meals to half a dozen elderly women who lived nearby. "They have nobody," he said. But eventually, as he saw looters break into nearly every other store on the street, he decided to leave. Back in the French Quarter, he stays busy feeding a colony of feral cats inside the once-majestic courtyard of St. Louis Cathedral. The yard is filled now with fallen magnolia trees and, in the middle, stands a statue of Jesus, its arms opened wide.

Animal rescue effort bogged down by hurricane's wreckage
Jackson Clarion Ledger
[Excerpts]
As evacuees are moved from the New Orleans Superdome to Houston, Pacelle said the Humane Society is helping transport their animals to shelter accommodations arranged by the Houston Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
They said dozens of pets have been taken to a makeshift shelter at the Mississippi Coliseum in Jackson and volunteers there took water on Friday to a roadside zoo, but other rescue efforts have been largely stymied by the sheer scope of the catastrophe.
"We know that pets owned and strays have been victimized. But there are also countless horses, wild animals and farm animals who have been killed or are now facing threats to their lives," President Wayne Pacelle said in a written statement posted on the Washington-based organization's Web site.

Displaced pets find homes in Knoxville
Knoxville News Sentinel (subscription)

Donations will go to displaced animals
News 14 Charlotte, NC
[Excerpt]
Volunteers from Project Halo will drive a bus full of pet supplies to the area, which was recently devastated by Hurricane Katrina.
But before they leave next week, they are taking donations

Group aims to help displaced animals
News 14 Charlotte

Shelters expect 'glut' of furry evacuees
Houston Chronicle
The SPCA here is already housing hundreds of pets left homeless in Katrina's wake
The Houston SPCA was sheltering about 400 animals displaced by Hurricane Katrina on Friday and expected about 300 more from Louisiana by late evening.
Sarmiento said the facility was looking to make more space available by moving adoptable animals already there to other Texas shelters
At the Houston Humane Society, spokeswoman Courtney Frank said her facility was busy adding temporary shelter space to house a continuing influx.
Frank said the Humane Society's wellness center at 14810 Almeda Road would be open from 9 a.m. to 3 p.m. on Saturday and Sunday to give out free vaccinations, flea treatment and food for pets whose owners have Louisiana, Mississippi and Alabama driver's licenses.
Laura Lanza, a spokeswoman for the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals in the southern region, said groups are trying to pick up the animals that have been left behind by the buses.
Also, she said, emergency rescue vehicles are prepared to enter the stricken area as soon as possible to pick up abandoned pets.
People who left pets stranded in their homes can contact the ASPCA at 212-876-7700, ext. 4700.


Evacuees finding this community a pet-friendly one
Tallahassee Democrat, FL
As Hurricane Katrina approached their Gulfport, Miss., home last Sunday, Lazare and Linda ... Once there, they found out that pets weren't allowed, which made for
[Excerpts]
On Monday, members of the Disaster Animal Response Team, which works in collaboration with the Red Cross, was able to put the Cohens in touch with a local clinic, the Bradfordville Animal Hospital.
Most Red Cross shelters do not accept pets, but several are establishing on-site pet refuges. The shelter in Live Oak, about 80 miles east of Tallahassee on I-10, was the closest one with a refuge as of Friday afternoon. The Florida Hurricane Relief Fund keeps track of pet-friendly shelters on its Web site, http://www.flahurricanefund.org/; just look for a paw print next to the shelter name.
And if you still can't find a place for your pets, or would like to volunteer to help with animals, contact the Red Cross (850) 878-6080. People with bigger animals, such as horses, can get in touch with the Tallahassee Animal Services Center, (850) 891-2950. For help with exotic birds, including long-term boarding, cages, food and medical help, call the Tri-State Avian Society's Christine Maples at (850) 562-2800 or Lisa Lazarus at (850) 877-0128.

Katrina Animals Pets - September 2, 2005

[See also Hurricane Katrina Animals Pets at catsinthenews.blogspot.com/2005/09/hurricane-katrina-animals-pets.html]


Hurricane Leaves Owners Desperate about Pets Whereabouts
US Newswire.com - 9/2/2005 6:02:00 PM
There is also good news in the midst of this tragedy. Yesterday, local groups managed to rescue more than 100 dogs from the Metairie Small Animal Clinic in Metairie, Louisiana. IFAW and others had been preparing for this risky rescue, but local teams were able to safely rescue the animals from the clinic. Accommodations for these and hundreds of other animals are now urgently needed

Boca Raton Animal Rescue Team Assists in Hurricane Katrina Relief Efforts
Emediawire.com - September 2, 2005
"When we return with these dogs, we will give them a home until we find their owners or permanent forever homes, no matter how long it takes," said Jamie Michael, the founder of Rescue Rehab Home (http://www.rescuerehabhome.org). “We are supporting the efforts of an international organization Emergency Animal Rescue Service (EARS). Our animal rescue team is leaving this week to pick up some of the 175 dogs and cats at an animal hospital/shelter in Metairie, Louisiana where there is extensive flooding. We will transfer them to our animal rescue facility here in Boca Raton. Our hurricane relief efforts will continue to get stranded animals out of the areas affected by Hurricane Katrina, and provide medical assistance and safe homes to these dogs and cats.”

Misery Grows for Those Left in New Orleans
Friday September 2, 2005 6:31 PM
Associated Press Writer
[Excerpt]
Pets were forbitten on the buses. On Thursday, when an officer confiscated a dog, a little boy cried out ``Snowball! Snowball!'' until he vomited.
National Guard officers said dogs were being taken to a stairwell in the New Orleans Center, a shopping mall near the Superdome, and given food and water. They feared some of them might have escaped, and two small dogs were seen wandering nearby streets.

Pet Rescue Efforts Underway in Slidell, LA
PrimeZone (press release), CA
Noah's Wish Rescues 68 Dogs, 24 Cats and 7 Birds From Homes Destroyed by Katrina
[Excerpt]
NEW YORK, Sept. 2, 2005 (PRIMEZONE) -- As of 3 p.m. EST today, Noah's Wish, a not-for-profit organization that exclusively deals with rescuing and sheltering animals in disasters reported that 68 dogs, 24 cats, 7 birds and 1 baby squirrel had been rescued and were being housed in a temporary animal shelter. The shelter was set up in a warehouse located at 1325 Bayou Lane in Slidell, Louisiana. Noah's Wish is working with Slidell Animal Control Director Damian Anti to coordinate the rescue of hundreds of abandoned and stranded pets in the city of Slidell. Located directly north of Lake Ponchatrain, Slidell was devastated by Katrina.

Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) - Update September 2, 2005 3:20pm
In Louisiana, we’re helping to set up an emergency facility at the Coliseum in Baton Rouge where strays will be brought, evaluated, and then transported to safety. While thousands of people are being evacuated from the New Orleans Superdome and relocated to Houston to be sheltered in the Astrodome, HSUS volunteers are helping transport animals from evacuees arriving at the Astrodome and ferrying them to the temporary shelter, which will be fully operational today.
In Mississippi, seven HSUS disaster field teams left to conduct damage and needs assessments and to provide help as they find needs from Jackson south to the Hattiesburg area. The HSUS team includes about 35 trained responders and 8-10 vehicles (plus trailers and RVs), including the HSUS Disaster Response Unit. Team capabilities include companion animals, horses, farm animals, and wildlife. The team leaders are pushing very hard to get help to Gulfport, Mississippi, but at this time Route 49 is open only to state-authorized emergency vehicles.

Shelters prepare for arrival of refugee pets
Dallas Business Journal, TX - September 2, 2005
... the chain has authorized food and supplies to be dispersed through Dallas-Fort Worth area stores directly to shelters working with animals affected by Katrina. ...
[Excerpt]
The North Texas area should prepare for an influx of animals displaced by Hurricane Katrina, experts say.
To make room at the Houston shelter, Dallas-based SPCA of Texas will bring 100 adoptable dogs and cats to North Texas.
The SPCA's McKinney facility had opened Pet Haven to offer temporary pet housing for evacuees' pets. By the end of its first day Thursday, 150 animals had been placed, almost three times the number the facility was expecting.

Items For Pets To Be Taken To Mississippi
The Chattanoogan, TN - September 2, 2005
The Animal Care Trust and Chattanooga Police Department have partnered to collect items for pets and get them to the Gulf Coast region.

Hurricane Katrina briefs: Scouts have event, help for pets
Cullman Times Online, AL
Boy Scout fund-raiser
Boy Scout Troop 31-Cullman County will be selling drinks and hot dogs in front of Lowe's from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Saturday. All proceeds to go to the Red Cross for the hurricane refugees in Cullman County.
Shelter for hurricane victims' pets
Dog Gone Resort is offering free boarding for pets of hurricane victims. This large facility has individual indoor-outdoor runs, heated and air conditioned, white tile floors and play yards. Personnel live on the property to ensure your pet has best of care. You may provide pet's personal feed or the facility will feed your pet their diet. Also, furnished are the bedding, rawhides, treats and toys for your pet during its stay. The facility encourages you to visit your pet whenever you desire. Dog Gone Resort is 10 minutes from downtown Cullman. For more information or directions, contact the resort at 734-4256.

Care given to all, even the furry
Texarkana Gazette, TX - September 2, 2005
Most local hotels understand that and are welcoming evacuees who have pets.
For those who cannot afford to stay in a motel, the Texarkana Humane Society, Texarkana Animal Shelter and the Texarkana Office of Emergency Management are setting up an animal shelter on the grounds of the Southwest Center.This way, evacuees staying at the shelter can have their pets close by.

Coast Guard to the rescue, again and again
KVUE (subscription), TX - September 2, 2005
[Excerpt]
The men and women of the Coast Guard have been flying countless rescue missions, pulling Katrina's exhausted victims to safety.
Barelli and Carabine pulled 106 people to safety in 48 hours. They were old and young and held tight to pets they would not leave.

Hub volunteers help to save stranded pets
Boston Herald, United States - September 2, 2005
[Excerpt]
One family with two children refused to leave their dogs, and preferred to sleep with them on a concrete fairground floor than be separated. Others slept in livestock stalls with their horses.
With their homes destroyed, all that mattered to the Katrina victims was keeping the animals that are dear to them, said Nicholas Gilman of the Boston Animal Rescue League, who has set up a makeshift shelter at the Jackson, Miss., fairgrounds.

Shreveport Times, LA - September 2, 2005
[Excerpt]
Pets: Animal Welfare Inc. is looking for donations and volunteer veterinary technicians to help in its effort to take supplies and food for the thousands of pets in rescue shelters this weekend. Donations needed include pet food, leashes, crates, collars, water, towels, medicines, cotton swabs, Wonder Dust, antiseptics, peroxide, alcohol, rolled fencing (something easy to unroll and put up quickly), tarps and tents (most animals are outside right now). Call Gloria Freeman at (318) 631-2124 (pager) or (318) 221-0053 or go to http://www.animalwelfareinc.org/ for more information.

Volunteers race against the clock to save pets
Newsweek - September 2, 2005
[Excerpt]
Animal shelters flooded
Animal disaster-rescue organization Noah’s Wish is operating out of Slidell, La. When Noah’s Wish director Terri Crisp and her team arrived in Slidell on Wednesday, the animal shelter was flooded with about 10 feet of water, rendering it unusable. A meeting with Slidell mayor Ben Morris produced a large warehouse with a huge lot behind it for use as a temporary animal shelter.
“They’re going to be able to have thousands of animals in this facility,” says Patricia Jones, media coordinator for Noah’s Wish. “They’ll have cage spaces for cats and small dogs inside the warehouse and in the lot they’re going to set up tents with chain-link dog runs for the larger dogs.”
That much space will be essential as rescuers get on with the work of rounding up stray dogs and cats. Loose dogs are everywhere in Slidell, left behind when their owners evacuated.
“Law enforcement officers, as they go around, are cutting dogs loose that they’re finding tied up, so Terri tells me there’s a lot of catch-up to do,” says Jones. “The good news is that we have a facility, we have about 25 veterinarians that are coming in to help, and about 400-plus trained volunteers coming in to help.”
As animals are brought in, they’ll be registered in a database to help facilitate reunions with their owners.

Hurricane Katrina Animals Pets

[See also
Katrina Animals Pets ~ September 18 to August 28, 2005
Katrina Animal Rescue Resources
Katrina Animals Pets - September 2, 2005
Katrina Animals Pets - September 3, 2005]

Hurricane Katrina Animal Disaster Response
Hurricane Katrina Animal Rescue
Hurricane Katrina Animal Relief Donations
Hurricane Katrina Animals News
Hurricane Katrina Pets News

News By State: Alabama :: Florida :: Louisiana :: Mississippi :: Texas

This page was created and posted Sunday morning, August 28, 2005 with subsequent daily updates through September 1. Similar, duplicate and speculative animal news articles were not posted.
Hurricane Katrina hit Florida on Friday morning, August 26. It hit New Orleans and Louisiana, Mississippi, Alabama on Monday morning, August 29.

- - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - - -

Monetary donations are best unless official and specific requests for physical help or supplies are made. Please check each website for updates.

The list provided here of animal rescue groups to whom one can donate is informational only, not a recommendation. It is also good to give locally. You must research charities. Two resources are guidestar.com and Who Gets The Money? –– 15th annual edition, Animal People News, December 2004.


Noah's Wish - Donations and Rescue Updates
Dedicated exclusively to Rescuing and Sheltering Animals in Disasters
Update: September 2, 2005 1:00 p.m. Louisiana Time
Noah's Wish has setup a Disaster Animal Shelter at the address below:
1325 BAYOU LANE, SLIDELL, LA (LOCATED NEXT TO HERITAGE PARK)

Animal Rescue Group `Noah's Wish' Appeals for Donations to Help ...
PrimeZone (press release), CA - August 31, 2005
NEW YORK, Aug. 31, 2005 (PRIMEZONE) -- Terri Crisp, Founder and Director of Noah's Wish, a not-for-profit organization that works exclusively to save animals after disasters, has set up rescue operations in Slidell, Louisiana. Crisp is being joined by more than 450 trained volunteers from across the nation to assist in the recovery efforts in the destruction caused by Hurricane Katrina. Volunteers include veterinarians, veterinary technicians and grief counselors.
Because most shelters do not allow pets, except for seeing-eye dogs and service animals, most pets are simply abandoned when families flee. Crisp estimates that over the next few weeks she and her team will rescue more than 1,000 pets.
"Noah's Wish exists to help people just as much as we help animals," says Crisp. "We will provide temporary shelter for pets whose owners have lost their homes and hopefully our teams will be able to reunite lost pets with their owners."
In addition, Noah's Wish will assist with the rescue of farm animals.
Americans who want to help can donate online at WWW.NOAHSWISH.ORG.

United Animal Nations - Donations and Rescue Updates
Emergency Animal Rescue Services (EARS)
* Emergency Animal Shelters
* Lost Animal Hotlines
(downloadable pdf off their website)
September 2, 2005: EARS leaders are now staging in Jackson, MS and Houston, TX to assess the situation and determine next steps. UAN is coordinating response efforts with several other organizations that are providing animal disaster relief - including the ASPCA, the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), Colorado-based Code 3 Associates, the Humane Society of the United States, American Humane and Best Friends Animal Society. On Saturday morning, responders from these organizations will meet to determine a plan of action for entering the Southern portion of the state. Initial plans for EARS to enter the New Orleans area to assist with animal evacuations have been put on hold due to increasing violence and lack of supplies across Louisiana.
August 31, 2005 BREAKING NEWS: We were just notified this morning that we are being activated to respond to Louisiana. Our first goal is to assist with the rescue of a reported 175 animals who are at a Metairie animal hospital, which is now flooding.

Petfinder.com has set up an emergency Hurricane Katrina Resource page.
katrina.petfinder.com links to a message board for posting or communicating with others about the plight of pets, animals and their owners.
August 28, 2005

Best Friends Animal Sanctuary
Via August 29, 2005 membership e-appeal and website
Special Reports/Updates
Donations
August 31, 2005 : 1:01 PM ET
Best Friends is coordinating efforts with rescue groups to find animals that have been left in Louisiana and Mississippi homes.
Please get the word out to anyone you know who had to leave behind an animal that they can write to hurricane@bestfriends.org or call 435.644.3965 ext.4455 and leave the following information:
Name and current contact information
Address where animal was left
Name of pet
Description of pet (species, breed, distinguishing characteristics)
Photo if available.
We will get this information to emergency command posts in the hope of getting to these houses and getting the animals out. We are doing everything we can to try to make this happen.

American Humane Association (AHA)
Latest update from Incident Command - September 1, 2005
American Humane Association's Animal Rescue Rig Deploys Today
Yahoo! News (press release) - August 31, 2005
Hurricane Katrina heads inland - August 30, 2005
American Humane's Animal Emergency Services is staging on the scene and organizing teams. Attention shelters and animal control officers: If you need support, contact American Humane's Animal Emergency Services program manager at (509) 869-1455! More details to follow!

Humane Society of the United States Disaster Relief Fund (HSUS)
Via sponsored Google link and membership e-appeal August 30, 2005
The HSUS is in Miss. Helping Animal Victims of Hurricane Katrina - September 1, 2005

PETCO Holds 'Round-Up' to Aid Animal Victims of Hurricane Katrina
PR Newswire (press release), NY - August 30, 2005
... Customers may also donate to Hurricane Katrina Disaster Relief on-line at http://www.petco.com. "We are consistently there for pets in need and thereby helping ...

ASPCA puts out a call for disaster relief Funds for Animal Shelters Affected by Hurricane Katrina
“With the funds raised, the ASPCA, working through its National Outreach program, will grant the money to shelters most in need of financial support after this week’s hurricane.”
Via website August 30 and press releases August 31, 2005

Alley Cat Allies
Help Cats in the Wake of Hurricane Katrina
If you know of cats, caregivers, or a rescue group in need, call Alley Cat Allies at 240-482-1980, ext. 125, and ask for Vanessa or e-mail alleycat@alleycat.org. We want to help.
Please donate to Alley Cat Allies’ Compassion Fund to assist the community-based cat rescue groups providing on-the-ground support for these displaced cats over the next weeks and months.
Click here to make a donation or send your gift by U.S. Postal Service. Be sure to designate the Compassion Fund. Please make your check payable to Alley Cat Allies and mail it to:
Alley Cat Allies
7920 Norfolk Avenue, Suite 600
Bethesda, MD 20814-2525
PLEASE NOTE: Due to the generous response to this crisis, the "click here" link above may not go through. In that case, please call Elise Ravenscroft of Alley Cat Allies at 240-482-1983. Elise can take your donation information over the phone.
Thank you!
Watch our website for updates and news.
[Via e-appeal August 31, 2005]

Long Island Sending Help To Katrina Victims
CBS New York, United States - August 31, 2005
... In Port Washington the North Shore Animal League has been swamped with requests from shelters in Louisiana and Mississippi. Volunteers ...
[North Shore Animal League Updates]

PetSmart Charities Mobilizes National Disaster Relief Effort for ...
Market Wire (press release) - September 1, 2005
The public can make tax-deductible donations to help the pet victims of Hurricane Katrina and other disasters one of three ways:
-- Make a credit card donation at the PetSmart Charities home page at
http://www.petsmartcharities.org/.
-- Make a cash donation at the Charity Dog receptacle inside any U.S.
PetSmart store between Aug. 30 and Sept. 30, 2005.
-- Mail in a check donation directly to: PetSmart Charities
Attn: Disaster Relief
19601 North 27th Avenue
Phoenix, AZ 85027
(Customers are asked to write "Disaster Relief" in the memo section on their check.)

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

VCA Animal Hospitals in Texas Provide Free Boarding to Animals Victimized by Hurricane Katrina
LOS ANGELES--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sept. 1, 2005--In the shadow of the devastating impact of Hurricane Katrina, VCA Animal Hospitals is taking an immediate step to aid victims by providing free boarding to house pets from the areas hardest hit by the hurricane. With a national network of 375 animal hospitals, VCA facilities in Alabama, Florida and Texas have joined together to help provide a safe haven for pets that have been impacted. The approximately 65 VCA hospitals are offering this valuable service on a space available basis to try to ease the emotional and financial burden many pet owners are now facing.
For further information and to locate a VCA hospital in Alabama, Florida or Texas, please call 1-800-VCA-PETS or visit the Web site at www.vcapets.com

Katrina Claims 55 Lives, Floods New Orleans
Environment News Service - August 30, 2005
[As part of the FEMA National Disaster Medical System teams sent to specified staging areas]
... Two veterinary medical assistance teams have also been deployed to support and rescue pets, and provide any needed veterinary medical care for rescue dogs. ...

Rescuing Animal Victims Of Hurricane Katrina
WBAL Channel.com, MD - August 30, 2005
[Excerpt]
BALTIMORE -- The Maryland Zoo in Baltimore plans to raise funds to help zoos impacted by Hurricane Katrina. Additionally, many Marylanders hope to come to the aid of stray animals. According to zoo officials, as many as four Louisiana zoos, one Mississippi zoo and two Alabama zoos may need help.
As a result, the Maryland Zoo plans to contribute all proceeds from a new recycling program to the zoos' hurricane relief funds.
The zoo said the funds will come from the recycling of specially-marked cans of Diet Coke brought to the Baltimore campus between September and December.

Wildlife Care Center Needs Help After Katrina
Click10.com, FL - August 30, 2005
If you're still looking for a way to help with recovery from Hurricane Katrina, workers, volunteers and animals sure can use it at the Fort Lauderdale Wildlife Care Center ...

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Animal News by State

ALABAMA

Hurricane Katrina Shelter Information
WSFA, AL - August 29, 2005
Montgomery Co. Humane Society will take evacuees' domestic animals starting at 6 am .
Monday Equine Evacuations - Laura Simmons – private land owner will allow horses to evacuate to her pasture in North Crenshaw County home: 334-537-4247 cell: 334-429-1633
We have an 80 acre ranch just north of Wetumpka, in the Titus area. We would like to offer, to those who may need it, boarding for horses during this disastrous time. The name of the farm is Coosa Ridge Ranch and the phone number is 256-377-1341 (ask for Sheri) or 256-377-2479 (ask for Fran).
To pasture you horse or house your dog in Lowndesboro, call 278-3381.
FLORIDA

Tree cutters, roofers, grinders, carpenters roll toward ...
Orlando Sentinel, FL - August 31, 1005
... SeaWorld is poised to help with stranded animals. ... And Gatorland, which last year captured a rogue alligator in Alabama after Hurricane Ivan, will respond if called -- even though its head wrangler is on the road. ...

Katrina takes toll on Florida's beaches, wildlife, scientists say
Sun-Sentinel.com, FL - Aug 27, 2005
... hurricanes approach, bringing a drop in air pressure, animals seek safety ... wetlands, coral reefs and other ecosystems coping with Hurricane Katrina are shrunken ...

Local10.com - Weather - New Orleans Braces For Katrina
[Scroll down to]
Before the Storm
... Miami-Dade Hotels That Accept Pets · Broward PetBoarding; Hotels-Motels Allowing Pets (pdf files) · Supplies For Your Home

Emergency Hurricane Katrina information: Pinellas County
Pet shelter: Pinellas County can now offer an alternative to pet owners who must seek public shelter during an emergency. The St. Petersburg Judicial Building, located at 545 1st Ave. N. in St. Petersburg, will serve as a shelter for people and their pets during mandatory evacuations only. Pre-registration will be required. The shelter is intended for pet owners who have no other options and are at risk if they stay home with their pets. Download pre-registration form

Hurricane Info
Miami Beach - Hurricane Katrina Advisory #4 - August 26, 2005
Pet-friendly Evacuation Center - Miami-Dade County has designated a hurricane shelter for pre-registered Miami Beach (and other A, B & C zones) evacuees and their pets. The shelter is located at the Sunshine Pavilion, Miami-Dade County Fair & Exposition, 10901 SW 24 Street. The Pavilion can hold 150 pets and 350 people. For more information click http://www.miamidade.gov/oem/library/eligiblity_criteria.pdf or call 786-331-5354 to register.

Levy County, Florida
The animal shelter will be opened on 8/28/05 at 6:00 PM. The shelter is located in Chiefland at 510 SE 4th CT. Signs will be posted on US 19 & Alt. 27. DUE TO LIMITED SPACE ONLY PEOPLE WHO ARE GOING TO THE DESIGNATED SHELTERS/POINTS OF DISTRIBUTION, IN LEVY COUNTY WILL BE ALLOWED TO USE THIS ANIMAL SHELTER. PLEASE BRING YOUR PETS FOOD, WATER AND CRATE.

Weather: Without Fido, some won't flee
Most Florida hurricane shelters don't accept pets, and as a result, some people just won't get out of harm's way.
St. Petersburg Times, FL - August 26, 2005
[Excerpt]
The pet effect in evacuations is not just anecdotal. In 1997, authorities in Yuba County, Calif., ordered the evacuation of 64,000 people after a broken levee threatened to flood them out.
A later study of 863 households did not measure age, but showed that people with pets and no children were 50 percent more likely to stay put than people without pets.

[Response to above:]
Sticking with the cats
St. Petersburg Times, FL - August 30, 2005
... very well not make it through the next hurricane, while he ... your paper Friday morning to see where Katrina was heading ... who won't leave because of a pet, I was ...


LOUISIANA

~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Animal Evacuation and Recovery Plan for New Orleans
The Louisiana Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (LA/SPCA), the Louisiana Veterinary Medical Association (LVMA), the Louisiana Animal Control Association (LACA), and the LSU School of Veterinary Medicine (SVM) are managing animal evacuations and recovery plans for New Orleans pets and displaced animals.

PETS TRAVELING WITH OWNERS
The LVMA is currently accepting pets at the Blackham Coliseum [next to CajunDome] in Lafayette, LSU in Shreveport, the Monroe Civic Center for small animals and the Ike Hamilton Center for large animals in Monroe, the Farmer?s Market in Alexandria, and the LSU Agriculture Center/Parker Coliseum in Baton Rouge. Owners must be housed in a Red Cross shelter; owners are responsible for caring for their animals, including feeding and cleaning. Animals will be accepted 24 hours a day. Veterinarians will be on hand to handle any medical needs.

While owners are responsible for the feeding and cleaning of their pets at the Parker Coliseum in Baton Rouge, the SVM, along with volunteers from the Baton Rouge Veterinary Medical Association, will provide veterinary care. If for some reason, an owner is unable to care for a pet sheltered in the Parker Coliseum (e.g., the owner is housed in a special needs shelter), SVM student volunteers will provide primary care, such as feeding and cleaning. The East Baton Rouge Animal Control Center will be taking stray animals.

The Parker Coliseum will be staffed 24 hours a day by a supervising veterinarian and student volunteers from the School of Veterinary Medicine. Pets in the Coliseum will be given physical exams and Bordetella (kennel cough) vaccinations. If a pet requires medical attention and veterinary monitoring, it will be sent to the LSU School of Veterinary Medicine?s Veterinary Teaching Hospital.

PEOPLE WITH PETS WHO ARE CURRENTLY EVACUATING NEW ORLEANS
The LA/SPCA will transport animals from pick-up points in New Orleans to the Lamar-Dixon Expo Center. The pick-up points have not yet been determined and are being coordinated with the agency charged with transporting people from New Orleans to other areas.

The Lamar-Dixon Expo Center, 9039 St. Landry Rd., Gonzales, La., will serve as the primary staging area. Once the shelter is full, animals will be moved to temporary shelters in other areas of Louisiana and Texas.

The LA/SPCA Dorothy Dorsett Mobile Veterinary Center will be at the Lamar-Dixon Center to treat incoming animals as needed.

CONFINED PETS STILL IN DISASTER AREA
Beginning on September 1, residents who left pets in their homes may call a hot line to leave information about the number of animals, species, and their confined location. As soon as the hotline number is obtained, we will advise the media. WE CANNOT ENTER NEW ORLEANS UNTIL APPROVAL IS GRANTED BY STATE OFFICIALS.
[Feral Cat Blog! Note: The New Orleans Louisiana Lost Animal Hotline is 225-578-6111.]

DONATIONS
Financial donations are being accepted to fund the animals? care through the Dr. Walter J. Ernst, Jr. Veterinary Memorial Foundation at the Louisiana Veterinary Medical Association at 1-800-524-2996. Make checks payable to the LVMA Dr. Walter J. Ernst Veterinary Memorial Foundation (write Disaster Relief Fund on the memo line) and send to the LVMA, 8550 United Plaza Blvd., Suite 1001, Baton Rouge, LA 70809. They will be able to use these funds quickly.

A regional donation center is being established. Our needs include: large air kennels and metal cages, leashes, disposable bowls, canned cat and dog food, disposable litter pans, spray bleach, paper towels, sheets, towels, locks, hoses, bottled water, trash cans, trash bags, pooper scoopers, cat litter, extension cords, fans. The most urgent needs are kennels and monetary donations. The media will be advised of the address once determined. At least 175 animals are currently en route to Baton Rouge.

For more information or to make donations of the materials listed above, please call the LSU School of Veterinary Medicine at 225-578-9900 (www.vetmed.lsu.edu) or the LVMA at 1-800-524-2996 (www.lvma.org).

ANIMAL EVACUATION AND RECOVERY PLAN CONTACT INFORMATION

Louisiana SPCA contact,Laura Maloney, 225-413-8813

East Baton Rouge Animal Control Center, Hilton Cole, 225-774-7700

LSU School of Veterinary Medicine, Dr. Becky Adcock, 225-578-9900

Louisiana Veterinary Medical Association, 225-928-5862
~ ~ ~ ~ ~

'Noah's Wish' to Save Pets
KATC, LA - August 31, 2005
[Excerpt]
The Louisiana Veterinary Medical Association is currently accepting pets at the Blackham Coliseum in Lafayette [next to CajunDome], LSU in Shreveport, the Monroe Civic Center for small animals and the Ike Hamilton Center for large animals in Monroe.
Pets are also being accepted at the Farmer's Market in Alexandria, and the LSU Agriculture Center at Parker Coliseum in Baton Rouge.
Owners must be housed in a Red Cross shelter and are responsible for caring for their animals, including feeding and cleaning. Animals will be accepted 24 hours a day, and veterinarians will be on hand to handle any medical needs.

Equine Rescue Group Helping Louisiana's Horses
Eworldwire (press release), NJ - August 31, 2005

Madison County prosecutor to lead pet rescue in Louisiana
KWQC TV 6, Iowa - August 31, 2005
[Excerpt]
EDWARDSVILLE, Ill. A Madison County prosecutor is leaving this week for the Gulf Coast to offer assistance to some lower profile hurricane victims -- family pets.
Amy Maher is a coordinator for a national organization called Noah's Wish, which works to save as many pets as possible during such catastrophes.
She says she expects more than a hundred Noah's Wish volunteers to arrive in Louisiana tomorrow.

~ ~ ~ Audubon Zoo and Aquarium News, New Orleans, Louisiana ~ ~ ~

Some landmarks took a beating
Dallas Morning News (subscription), TX - September 1, 2005 12am
LOUISIANA
Audubon Zoo and Audubon Aquarium: Both appeared to have suffered little damage. Zoo director Ron Forman said the animals were fine and the only major damage appeared to be downed trees. But the zoo faces a dwindling supply of food and other necessities, and pumps are overheating. Zoo staff took refuge in the reptile house, which was designed to withstand a major hurricane.

American Zoo and Aquariam Association Hurricane Update
Hurricane Update
This is what we know about the status of AZA member institutions in the affected area as of 5:00 pm, 1 September 2005
Audubon ZooAZA has gotten an update on the Audubon Zoo situation from Dr. Betsy Dresser, director of the Audubon Center for the Research in Endangered Species (ACRES) facility. A crew of 12 are on site at the Zoo. She reports that they are in good spirits. They have supplies and currently the generators are operational. They do not believe there is a need to move the animals from the Zoo at present. The Zoo is coordinating its future supply needs through Dr. Dresser, who is working with the AZA.
Aquarium of the AmericasIn the past 24 hours, staff has had to vacate the Aquarium of the Americas. The Aquarium is in the area of the city where there is much looting and violence. Ron Forman, President and CEO of the Audubon Nature Institute is coordinating efforts to keep the Aquarium safe through the NO police and fire departments. Once the area around the Aquarium stabilizes, Aquarium staff will return to the facility.
This is what we know about the status of AZA member institutions in the affected area as of 5:00 pm, August 31. [emphasis added]
[Excerpt]
Audubon Nature Institute
The staff of the Audubon Nature Institute is safe. The physical plants at both the Zoo and the Aquarium suffered little damage. The staff will continue to assess the impact on the animal collections at all the Audubon facilities.

Area couple's fears eased
Palladium-Item, IN - August 31, 2005
[Excerpt]
What they knew was that their daughter, Suzanne Albes, was holed up in the Aquarium of Americas in downtown New Orleans, fighting to keep more than 10,000 species of fish, birds and reptiles alive while Hurricane Katrina marched savagely up the Gulf Coast.
Finally, around 7:30 p.m. Tuesday, the phone rang at the Stevens' home, breaking the silence and slicing through 36 hours of worry.
It was Suzanne.
She was safe.
Albes is a marine biologist at the aquarium. She and two other staffers volunteered to stay behind and try to keep the animals alive as the winds howled, the rain lashed buildings and water swirled everywhere.
The aquarium is located on Canal Street on the banks of the Mississippi River, a few blocks from the city's French Quarter. A majority of downtown New Orleans is flooded.
Suzanne told her mother that when the aquarium lost power Monday, they quickly fired a generator. They had plenty of food and fresh water and, thus far, flood waters had not entered the building.

City is damaged, damp - and lucky [New Orleans]
Baltimore Sun, United States - August 30, 2005
[Excerpt]
Forman, president and chief executive of the Audubon Nature Institute, was happy his charges stayed inside. He oversees the Audubon Zoo, the aquarium and other facilities, which he said fared well in the storm.
A few flamingos died, but he said there was little other loss of animal life.
[Feral Cat Blog! Note: I believe this was published before the levee failed and waters flooded ~80% of New Orleans so not sure of the zoo and aquarium status. Haven't seen an update yet.]

~ ~ ~ ~ ~

Health expert: New Orleans residents stay away
CNN - August 30, 2005
One expert says New Orleans residents would face 'wilderness'
(CNN) -- Louisiana officials Monday urged the hundreds of thousands of people in the state who fled Hurricane Katrina to stay where they are.
[Excerpt]
Van Heerden ticked off the problems anyone returning to the city would find: "no sewage, no drinking water, contamination, threat of rapid increase in mosquitoes, roads are impassible, downed power lines everywhere, trees, debris from houses in the roads, no way to go shopping, no gas."
The water also has dislodged fire ants and thousands of snakes -- including poisonous water moccasins -- from their homes.

Pet Evacuee Shelters
KSLA-TV, LA - August 29, 2005
[Excerpt]
Scores of pets have made the long journey to the Arklatex with their owners who evacuated from Hurricane Katrina. But, many hotels either don't allow pets or charge a hefty price. That's why there are animal shelters helping take in these animals.To their owners, they are as precious as gold. And, people have taken great care in getting their pets to the tent Shelter outside the Red Cross Shelter at the gym of LSU-Shreveport.

Area groups provide shelter for animals displaced by storm
Shreveport Times, LA - August 29, 2005
[Excerpt]
The Krewe of Barkus & Meoux, along with the Humane Society and several local veterinarians organized a tent to shelter animals of those evacuees being housed at the American Red Cross shelter in the LSUS Health and Physical Education Building."This is the first time we've had an animal shelter available to us," said Michelle Davidson with the northwest Louisiana chapter of the Red Cross. "They've been growing just as fast as we are."And that's a relief for both Davidson and the people she and Red Cross volunteers want to help."That is often an obstacle for people to overcome when it comes to getting them to evacuate," she said. "Unfortunately, we can't accept animals (in Red Cross shelters)."Having their pets so close by has been a great comfort for many evacuees, Davidson said."They have appreciated the opportunity," she said. "A lot go out and play with the animals to make them feel a little better and I think it probably soothes them as much as the animals. "Nancy Bardwell with the Northwest Louisiana Humane Society said the community support of the evacuees and their pets has been tremendous."We can accommodate a lot more than what's here," she said of the 30 animals including a parrot and a canary they were housing Sunday evening. "If we run over, there are local animal shelters and horse stables that are ready to step in and help. We've gotten so many donations, we can hold out as long as we need to."The Caddo Commission's animal services division sent several cages to the shelter at LSUS and also opened up its doors to help house evacuees' pets.The parish began accepting dogs and cats free of charge about noon Sunday and would continue to do so until they filled up the 60 vacancies they had available, said Anita Mills, spokeswoman for the division.

~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~ ~
Louisiana SPCA shelter animals moved to Houston, Texas
See also TEXAS news.

Animals Evacuate Ahead Of Katrina
WDSU.com - WDSU News Channel 6, New Orleans, Louisiana
POSTED: 3:42 pm CDT August 28, 2005
[Includes hurricane and evacuation news]
Thousands of animals are being evacuated from New Orleans as Hurricane Katrina heads toward the Louisiana coastline.
Shelter workers recommend anyone leaving town should take their pets with them and make sure animals have ID tags, WDSU NewsChannel 6 reported.
Pet owners should also carry a photo of their pet in the event the animal becomes lost. Several animal shelters evacuated to Houston to wait out the storm.
"Normally, we'll evacuate all of our adoptable animals to Lake Charles, where Houston will meet us and take them. Then we'll come back, load our strays, take them to Jackson and our own animals to Baton Rouge. There's such a small window of opportunity this time that everything's going west with us, we're all going to Houston," Louisiana Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals representative Kate Pika said.

Shelter Closing; Animals are Being Moved as Katrina Approaches
NEW ORLEANS (8/27/05) – The LA/SPCA will be closing at 5pm today and plans to reopen on Tuesday, weather permitting. The shelter only evacuates for Category 3 or higher hurricanes.Twenty-five dogs that are being held pending court cases are on their way to Baton Rouge Animal Control to ride out Hurricane Katrina. Approximately 250 animals, strays and adoptables, will be moved to the Houston SPCA this evening in two 16’ climate-controlled trucks. Moving large number of animals is labor and time intensive and requires tremendous planning. The animals will return to Japonica Street on Tuesday, weather and building permitting. (Note: Japonica Street shelter floods extremely easily and may not be ready for inhabitants immediately following the storm.) The LA/SPCA recommends that all animals be evacuated should the family decide to leave the city. Be sure your pet is properly fitted with a collar and identification tags. Also take along a photo of you and your pet in the event you become separated. Familiar pet toys and food will help keep your pet calm when in unfamiliar territory. Please remember that Red Cross shelters do not accept pets and the SPCA does not board animals under any circumstances. Pets cannot survive if left to fend for themselves or tied to a stationary object. Those people who choose to abandon their pets will be charged with cruelty to animals. All trapping of animals like raccoons, stray cats, and the like should be discontinued until the storm passes. The Louisiana SPCA, a private non-profit organization chartered for the state of Louisiana in 1888, is dedicated to ending animal cruelty, eliminating animal overpopulation, providing quality low-cost veterinary care, and promoting the human and animal bond.
# # #
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MISSISSIPPI

WASHINGTON, Sept. 1 /PRNewswire/ -- The Humane Society of the United States Disaster Animal Response Team (DART), in conjunction with the Mississippi Board of Animal Health, is in Mississippi assisting with a pet-friendly shelter that has been established at the Coliseum in Jackson, which currently houses more than 80 animals. For the Jackson, Miss. area only, a phone number has been established to call to report missing or found pets.
The number is 1-800-252-0923.

ANIMAL CARE
Gulfport Veterinary Hospital and Pass Road Veterinary Hospital will be open with generator power today and Saturday from noon to 2 p.m. The animal clinics are owned by Dr. Johnny Geotes, who has a third clinic in Saucier but has been unable to contact it.
"If people have injured or sick animals, or if people need pet medication or health certificates if they want to take the animal on an airplane, we will help as much as we can until things like pet tranquilizers or inoculations run out," Geotes said Thursday afternoon, the first day he opened for the two-hour stretch.
Gulfport Veterinary is at 204 Pass Road. Pass Road Veterinary in Biloxi is at 2709 Pass Road.
The Humane Society is in need of volunteers to help feed and water animals left in the ruins. They reported the new U.S. 49 location may be used to shelter animals.

Maryland Man To Help Animals Stranded By 'Katrina' [horses]
WJXX, FL - August 31, 2005
... from Mother Nature, such as last year's multiple hurricane hits in ... they're taking Schwartz to Mississippi to rescue animals stranded by 'Katrina'. ...

Dolphins moved from hotel swimming pools to Panhandle marine park
SunHerald.com, MS - August 31, 2005
... evacuated to swimming pools at two Mississippi hotels when Hurricane Katrina threatened a ... Park in Panama City and the Gulfarium brought the animals to Florida ...

Dolphins spend hurricane in Gulfport hotel pool
SunHerald.com, MS - August 30, 2005...
the beachside Marine Life park were moved to a local hotel pool to weather Hurricane Katrina. ... This isn't the first time the sea animals have been hotel guests. ...

Region prepares to house storm evacuees
Northeast Mississippi Daily Journal, MS - August 29, 2005
... of evacuating his home state because of Hurricane Katrina. ... with evacuees to provide discounts to house animals. ... "Nobody's really even mentioning the hurricane. ...
Pets will not be allowed at the Red Cross shelter, but Tucker said Dilworth Small Animal Hospital had contacted her and would work with evacuees to provide discounts to house animals.


TEXAS

75,000 Katrina refugees bound for Texas [Reunion Arena, Dallas]
WFAA (subscription), TX - September 1, 2005
... will be the temporary home for at least 25,000 Hurricane Katrina refugees from ...
Dallas has built a makeshift animal shelter in a Reunion parking garage, complete with food, water and veterinarian care for dozens of displaced pets, said Ade Williams, assistant director of Dallas' Department of Code Compliance.

Katrina’s victims have four legs, too
Daily News - Galveston County, TX - August 31, 2005
Those animals that are not allowed to stay in hotels or with friends or family have been taken to Galveston County’s animal shelters.

Evacuated cats, dogs available for adoption
Bryan College Station Eagle, Texas - September 1, 2005
Twenty dogs and 10 cats rescued from the New Orleans Humane Society before the hurricane hit arrived Monday in Bryan and are up for adoption.
The Brazos Animal Shelter, 2207 Finfeather Road, is open from 10 a.m. to 6 p.m. Monday through Friday and 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. Saturday.
For more information, call 979-775-5755.

Cajun cats, dogs come to Houston to escape Katrina
KVUE (subscription), TX - August 29, 2005
... Louisiana. Maloney heads Louisiana's SPCA. She and 13 staff members never hesitated to get their animals out of Katrina's way. "Our ...
[See also LOUISIANA news.]

NEW: SPCA of Bexar County to assist with animal relief
San Antonio Express (subscription), TX - August 30, 2005
The Humane Society SPCA of Bexar County left for Houston this afternoon to pick up about six dozen dogs and cats evacuated from Hurricane Katrina's path this ...

In Houston, it's raining cats and dogs
Houston Chronicle, United States - August 30, 2005
... milled about the lobby with their owners who fled Hurricane Katrina's wrath. ... hotel spokeswoman Anna Drake, who estimated more than 100 animals, including birds ...

Hotels relax policies on pets
Denton Record Chronicle (subscription), TX - August 30, 2005
Hotels have relaxed their policies, allowing Hurricane Katrina evacuees to keep their pets with ... Anna Drake, who estimated more than 100 animals, including birds ...

Hurricane Katrina evacuees flee to Longview, area
News Journal, TX - August 29, 2005
... "I think a hurricane is one of the better ones because at least we have a good advanced warning. ... "Everybody is welcome, including animals and livestock ...
Local hotel officials reported that very few, if any, rooms are available in Longview, Marshall and Tyler; however, the local Red Cross opened up a shelter at Maude Cobb Convention and Activity Center on Sunday afternoon for those looking for a place to stay.
Mandy Burks, emergency services director with the Red Cross, said the center can hold up to 800 people, and plenty of space is available.
"Everybody is welcome, including animals and livestock," she said.

FLOODED REGION - NO STATE YET SPECIFIED

Safe Havens and Veterinary Services Needed for Hurricane Katrina's Equine Refugees
TheHorse.com, KY - August 31, 2005
(Lexington, KY) – As Americans view the newscasts of the devastation caused by Hurricane Katrina it is clear that both humans and animals require immediate ...
Place Your Facility on the USEF Hurricane Equine Relief List
[Download the USEF Hurricane Equine Relief List off their website.]

Residents Prepare To Assist Refugees, Injured
Carolina Channel.com, SC - August 31, 2005
[Excerpt]
The rescue group Pets In Peril is working out details with officials to send volunteers to the flooded region to help round up lost and injured family pets.
"You've got literally tens of thousands of animals in attics right now or swimming around on pieces of wood hanging on. These animals will die if no one rescues them," Pets In Peril leader Joe Renna said. "We need volunteers to drive the vans and perform rescue operations. We need able bodied people."
Renna said people wanting more information about volunteering or donating supplies should call (864) 222-1641.

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Animal Safety - Pets and Disaster: Be Prepared
American Red Cross
A Final Word
If you must evacuate, do not leave your animals behind. Evacuate them to a prearranged safe location if they cannot stay with your during the evacuation period (remember, pets are not allowed in Red Cross shelters.) If there is a possibility that disaster may strike while you are out of the house, there are precautions you can take to increase your pets' chances of survival, but they are not a substitute for evacuating with your pets.

Protect your pets and animals
South Florida Sun-Sentinel
Decide now what to do with your pets in the event of a hurricane. The choices are to keep the pet with you at home, take it with you if you evacuate, leave it with a friend, or board it at a kennel.
Shelters do not allow pets. Don't plan on taking your pet to a public emergency shelter. Because of safety and public health concerns, public shelters don't allow pets, except Seeing Eye dogs and disability work dogs.
Leave pets alone at home only as a last resort, and then be sure to leave them enough food and water. Never leave a pet at home on a tether.

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State Emergency Management Links [from FEMA]
These links are for local issues and concerns on evacuations, preparations, shelters and safety. Please refer to the appropriate state.
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