ANIMAL PEOPLE is the leading independent newspaper providing original investigative coverage of animal protection worldwide. Founded in 1992, ANIMAL PEOPLE has no alignment or affiliation with any other entity. |
This site built and maintained by: GREANVILLE ASSOCIATES and CRESCENT COMMUNICATIONS • Rev. 6.1.05 Copyright ANIMAL PEOPLE, INC. 1992--2005
 |
 |
ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS
|
NOVEMBER 2005
New Orleans rescue ends with a storm
NEW ORLEANS––The biggest animal rescue effort in U.S. history officially ended on October 25, 2005. On advice of assistant state veterinarian Martha Littlefield, Louisiana Governor Kathleen Blanco allowed the temporary permits issued to out-of-state veterinarians assisting animal relief efforts in New Orleans to expire. Out-of-state rescuers still operating temporary shelters and feeding programs were thanked and asked to return home, to leave the remaining work to local agencies.
Feline survivor (Jan Bertman) |
“We are literally seeing animals on the streets starving to death,” objected AnimalRescueNewOrleans founder Jane Garrison, of Charleston, South Carolina. “We need more volunteers to feed and water the thousands of traumatized animals still on the streets, we need to keep trapping animals so we can reunite them with their guardians, and we need a massive spay/neuter program.”
|
Responded Louisiana SPCA executive director Laura Maloney, “Please be assured that I recognize and value the tremendous effort demonstrated by those who have given their time and resources to save our animals. It would be foolish to think that the Louisiana SPCA could have handled this alone.”
But Maloney noted that, “Visiting animal control teams and local residents are not seeing evidence of thousands of starving animals. We’re trapping every night and definitely seeing strays, but we’re not seeing thousands. We have been trapping between 15 and 30 animals per day. “
The longtime Louisiana SPCA headquarters on Japonica Street in New Orleans was damaged beyond repair.
Maloney said that until a temporary Louisiana SPCA shelter in Algiers has appropriate adoption facilities, some adoptable animals would be transferred for rehoming to the Plaquemines Animal Welfare Society in Belle Chasse.
To prepare for the next phase of the post-Katrina/Rita animal recovery effort, Maloney said, “We are deploying a multi-agency assessment team, which is visiting the city’s animal rescue hot spots. We are working two shifts, at dawn and dusk, when animals are most active.
“We always need volunteers,” Maloney added. “Not everyone, however, wants to work within the system,” an increasing problem for the Louisiana SPCA and other local agencies as residents returned to the city.
Complaints
Some residents who recovered lost pets, or returned to New Orleans with pets, complained that the animals were snatched by rescuers who wrongly presumed that any animal they saw was abandoned. Some returnees threatened to shoot would-be rescuers who repeatedly broke into homes to search for animals. Tempers were additionally frayed by rescuers who spray-painted houses or even parked cars to identify the locations of animals for others.
The Louisiana SPCA and animal control agencies found themselves on the receiving end of countless complaints about the actions of rescuers they knew nothing about.
 |
 |
|
 |
Above left: Alley Cat Allies volunteer Diane Blankenberg and national outreach director Bonney Brown rescue a cat. (Photo by James Davis.) Above right: After several rescuer break-ins, the occupants of this house threatened to shoot rescuers. (Photo by Laura Maloney.) Spray-painted notes sometimes helped rescuers to find animals, and other times just annoyed New Orleans residents, as when someone painted this car to point out a sign on the house behind it. (Photos by Laura Maloney.) |
|
“Sadly, we were forwarded emails where people mentioned testing us with false reports to see how fast we would respond,” Maloney told ANIMAL PEOPLE on November 13. “Yesterday, one of our visiting teams responded to a call only to see an ‘animal rescue’ vehicle flee when they approached. I would hope that rescuers wouldn’t waste valuable resources playing games with animals’ lives.”
“An unfortunate reality,” Maloney continued, “is that we will never know how many more animals might have been saved had unsanctioned rescuers been willing to work cooperatively with regional and state authorities. Precious time and resources have been wasted through working at cross-purposes and duplicating services.”
Maloney noted that some ad hoc rescue groups worked with “untrained volunteers who may have arrived the very morning they were deployed. Perhaps assigning them to cage cleaning or other support tasks would have been a better use of their skills,” she suggested, noting that “When I asked for volunteers to stay behind and help care for the animals at Lamar-Dixon,” the largest of the post-Katrina temporary rescue centers, “it was clear that many of the unskilled volunteers were more interested in fulfilling their personal needs than in doing what was most needed by the animals.”
Summing up
The Humane Society of the U.S. withdrew from New Orleans in mid-October after a two-week phase-out of operations. As the lead agency coordinating the relief efforts until then, HSUS “helped to rescue more than 8,200 stranded pets and other animals,” summarized HSUS president Wayne Pacelle. “At peak, our Lamar-Dixon emergency shelter in Gonzales, Louisiana housed nearly 2,000 animals, and more than 300 people attended to their needs. Our facility at Hattiesburg, Mississippi, handled nearly 2,400 animals.
“We helped reunite more than 800 rescued pets with the people who love them,” Pacelle continued. “We have pledged, with the American SPCA, to pay whatever costs are necessary to transport animals to be reunited with their people. More than 40 HSUS staff and a cadre of volunteers are working to match lost pets with their caregivers.”
The rescue operations had by October reached a point of steeply diminishing returns. Only about 5% of the total number of animals who were rescued were recovered after September, and few of those were not found loose, outdoors.
“If an animal was still home, he was on the edge of life,” Iowa State University assistant professor of veterinary pathology Christine Peterson told Des Moines Register staff writer Mike Kilen, after spending the last week of September seeking animals in deserted houses. “The vast majority of them were dehydrated, emaciated, and had parasites.”
Two dogs died for every cat, Peterson found. But once she found a woman lying dead with her seven cats.
“She did not want to leave them,” Petersen told Kilen. “It was not easy to see.”
Added animal control officer Michael Melchionne, of Stafford, New Jersey, to Asbury Park Press staff writer Joe Zedalis, “You can’t believe how many animals we found dead on the beds of their people or at the front door, waiting for them to return.”
After encountering so much death, many rescuers compulsively sought live animals, whose recovery might bring them some consolation, even long after there were any to be found. The syndrome was familiar to disaster relief veterans, but difficult to counter.
Remaining rescuers hopes were raised, for example, when Kim Campbell Thornton reported on November 3 for MSNBC that, “More than two months after Hurricane Katrina, animals are still being found alive in New Orleans, pulled out of attics and from beneath flooring, or” in all but a handful of cases, “off of the streets.”
Since October 1, Thornton said, when the HSUS rescue centers quit taking animals, “volunteers with Animal Rescue New Orleans have rescued more than 400 animals, delivering them to the Best Friends shelter on the grounds of Saint Francis Animal Sanctuary in Tylertown, Mississippi.”
Confirmed Best Friends president Michael Mountain on November 5, “Another 155 animals rescued from New Orleans left the Best Friends rescue center at Tylertown last week with foster groups from around the country.
“We began running short of foster groups early in the week,” Mountain said, “and had to stop taking in more animals for a few days. Instead, we temporarily placed the new rescues in boarding kennels.” The Tylertown rescue center was still receiving about 20 animals per day, with about 400 on the premises at any given time, according to Mountain.
“We’re expecting to keep the rescue center open through the end of this year,” Mountain said, “since the other major rescue organizations are now less active in the region.”
“Many of the animals have special needs, such as high levels of heartworm, and behavioral issues arising from the conditions they have been in,” Mountain mentioned.
Spending the money
Estimating that up to 80% of the dogs rescued from the Hurricane Katrina disaster area had heartworm, carried by mosquitoes, HSUS, the ASPCA, the Humane Society of Greater Miami, Adopt-a-Pet, and the American Animal Hospital Association on November 4 jointly announced a subsidized heartworm treatment program.
Subsidies of up to $500 per animal will be made available for animals from more than 200 participating shelters who are treated by an AAHA-accredited veterinary practice.
Money did not seem to be an issue for the organizations whose fundraising arms responded promptly to Katrina and Rita. HSUS reportedly raised $18 million. The American SPCA raised $13 million. Network For Good vice president Katya Andresen told Houston Chronicle reporter Cynthia Garza that Noah’s Wish ranked third among animal groups in funds raised, at $6.5 million, though mentioned in only 31 (5.3%) of the 581 print and electronic news items that ANIMAL PEOPLE received about the Katrina/Rita animal relief effort.
HSUS was mentioned in 165 items, Best Friends in 104, and the ASPCA in 95.
As well as helping humane societies hit by Katrina and Rita to rebuild, the ASPCA offered incentive grants of $500 “to each rescue site that reunites a pet and owner, as well as grants to pay for the cost of the return of the pet.”
Lessons learned
“I find myself struggling with the nagging fear that we could have saved more animals,” wrote American Humane Association disaster relief coordinator Dick Green in an online blog. “If there had just been more hours of daylight, no curfew, better intelligence, more trained responders, better cooperation…If there is any consolation, it is that our country is beginning to understand how intricately connected the safety and well-being of humans and animals are.”
“We had an emergency plan, but I have learned it is not enough,” Humane Society of the Nature Coast executive director Joanne Schoch told St. Petersburg Times staff writer Beth N. Gray. Schoch made three trips to assist in the Katrina/Rita disaster zone. ––Merritt Clifton