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ESSENTIAL DESTINATIONS

MONTH: September 2007

Summer 2007 disasters challenge the global humane community

 

LIMA, DHAKA, GUWATI-- Busy in Peru, Bangladesh, northeastern India, around the Caribbean, and forest fire zones in central Europe and the northern Rocky Mountains, among other disaster scenes, and still working in New Orleans too, animal disaster relief workers took only brief notice of the second anniversary of Hurricane Katrina hitting southern Louisiana and Mississippi. Few noticed at all the 15th anniversary of Hurricane Andrew ripping through trailer parks and low-income suburbs in southern Florida after all but jumping over the affluent east coast.

Bringing relief teams into areas that were decades behind much of the rest of the U.S. in providing even basic humane services, Hurricanes Andrew and Katrina transformed humane outreach from providing brief emergency help to preparing for multi-phase sustained missions.

Hurricane Andrew demonstrated the need for pre-prepared response plans, inter-agency coordination, and orderly means of identifying, evacuating, and rehoming lost or abandoned pets whose people may also be displaced and distressed.

Out of Hurricane Andrew came programs that gradually shifted from splinting and bandaging to vaccinating and sterilizing dogs and cats, some of which evolved into sustained feral cat rescue projects and adoption transport networks.

Hurricane Katrina tested on an unprecedented scale the infrastructure developed from the Hurricane Andrew experience, confirmed the power of the Internet in rallying response, and as donors responded, brought commitments from national humane organizations to not only rebuild but expand humane services throughout the stricken region.

None of the late summer 2007 disasters were of Hurricane Katrina magnitude, nor brought a comparable financial response from the public. The August 15 Peruvian earthquake, however, measuring 7.9 on the Richter scale, killed and injured more people and animals than Hurricane Andrew, and like Hurricane Andrew may be remembered as a signal event, awakening the international humane community to Peruvian humane needs and the emergence of a growing Peruvian humane movement.

 


The first of three missions sent by the Lima-based organization Unidos por los Animales to the quake-wracked cities of Cañete, Chincha, Pisco Paracas, and Ica reached the region within 24 hours, well ahead of most of the human disaster relief aid. Volunteer veterinarians Wendy Flores and Julio Rodrigues, with six assistants, found "hundreds of bodies buried in the rubble. More than 3,500 animals have been affected," they estimated, "mostly dogs, but collapsing barns also trapped cattle."

As the extent of the earthquake became more apparent, Unidos por los Animales increased their assessment of the numbers of animals in urgent need to more than 5,000.

Each Unidos por los Animales mission treated more than 1,000 animals. The third mission, reaching Pisco 15 days after the earthquake, spent eight days vaccinating 1,051 animals, treating 623 animals for conditions associated with dust inhalation, treating 256 animals for other illnesses and injuries, and collaring all of the animals for quick identification, amid rumors that stray animals would be poisoned to prevent rabies.

The Peruvian Association for the Protection of Animals, Amazon CARES, Huaw Huaw, Amigos de los Animales, Grupo Caridad, and the Asociacion Defensora de la Fauna y Flora horse and donkey care project at Huancavelica also reported mounting rapid responses.

 


Working with Ica veterinarian Carlos Bellido, whose clinic had been destroyed by the earthquake, Huaw Huaw did emergency surgery on injured dogs and cats in both Ica and Pisco, said president Francisco Cavero Alprecht, through Best Friends Network translator Michael G. Rodrigue. Also providing food and anti-parasite treatments, Huaw Huaw then relocated to Pisco to assist another local veterinarian, Miguel Hernandez, who had also lost his clinic.

Like Unidos por los Animales, Huaw Huaw tried to prevent panic-driven dog poisonings in response to unconfirmed rumors of rabies. "Drastic measures taken in emergency situations, such as those in the affected areas where there are large number of dogs in the streets, can be very radical and unethical," warned Alprecht.

The first help from outside Peru may have come from Los Angeles-area Hurricane Katrina veterans Gerald Pool, Marcia Maxwell, and Thea Martin, who worked in Ica with ASPPA and Amazon CARES.

Pool in an August 31 e-mail to Best Friends described "Fourteen to 16-hour days feeding, spraying for fleas, and feeding emaciated strays, or animals from families who cannot find food for themselves. Many animals were trapped on second floors and roofs, and have to be brought down on makeshift ladders," Pool wrote. "More than 350 animals have been treated."

The Canadian Animal Assistance Team, formed by Vancouver veterinary technician Donna Lasser after Hurricane Katrina, deployed a 15-member team of vets and vet techs on August 27, headed by Shari Artadi, and sent a relief team and reinforcements on September 3.

Best Friends rapid response manager Richard Crook, Peruvian-licensed veterinarian Aldo Wilson, and photographer Molly Wald arrived on September 4. Working with CAAT, they fed, vaccinated, and sterilized animals in Guadalupe on September 8, reporting excellent local response, but on September 9 in Pisco "found residents angry and frustrated over the failure of food, clothing and other supplies to reach them," reported Best Friends magazine senior editor Michael Rinker. "As frustration among locals grows, so does concern for the safety of our team. For the rest of their time there," Rinker wrote, "they will restrict their visits to areas that have a military presence."

World Society for the Protection of Animals disaster relief operations manager James Sawyer mentioned that one of the Peruvian organizations had also encountered hostility and withdrew from the earthquake zone rather than completing a needs assessment.

WSPA supported Unidos por los Animales in "liaising with the General Authority for Environmental Health to secure an agreement for humane control of the large stray population, and have recommended that an urgent sterilization program is needed," e-mailed Sawyer.

Caribbean theatre

WSPA also responded to Hurricanes Dean and Felix in the Caribbean, and a third straight year of heavy monsoon flooding in India and Bangladesh, which as result of global warming may be becoming "normal."

"Noah's Ark Spay & Neuter Group reports many injured free-roaming dogs in Kingston," e-mailed Pegasus Foundation senior program officer Anne M. Ostberg on August 27, after Hurricane Dean.

"The Jamaica SPCA, also in Kingston, is working to address increased demand for housing lost and injured pets. Animal House Jamaica in Ocho Rios lost part of its roof and most of its fencing, but all of the Animal House people and animals are safe. The Belize Humane Society in Belize City sustained some damage to their shelter."

Among the human fatalities from Hurricane Dean was a 62-year-old man in St. Lucia who drowned when he tried to retrieve a cow from a rain-swollen river.

WSPA, Humane Society International, and the International Fund for Animal Welfare funded emergency feeding and watering at the badly damaged Chetumal Zoo in Mexico, and agreed to fund a new veterinary clinic at the zoo.

A WSPA needs assessment team was in Managua, Nicaragua, planning a response to Hurricane Felix as ANIMAL PEOPLE went to press.

Monsoons

WSPA had just finished perhaps the first major disaster relief project on behalf of animals in Bangladesh, a nation with only one WSPA member society, the very small Dhaka-based Bangaladesh Animal Welfare Organiz-ation, and little other humane infrastructure. Much of Bangladesh was inundated by runoff from the monsoon torrents that hit Bijar and Assam states in India.

Working with the Bangladesh Livestock Department and the nonprofit Human Development Program, WSPA invested $150,000 in emergency feeding and anti-parasite treatments to assist about 50,000 livestock and work animals belonging to about 20,000 families. Four to five times more animals needed help, according to WSPA director of disaster management Philip Russell's preliminary assessment, but there was little way of effectively providing it.

"Destruction of grass and stored hay resulted in grazing animals being fed water reeds and cuttings from banana trees," Russell reported. "This was inappropriate, and the animals either rejected it or, if they did eat it, it was of little nutritional value. This caused a serious imbalance in many animals' blood acidity levels, increasing the risk posed by harmful bacteria. Flood waters carried high levels of parasites, deposited on vegetation and consumed by many animals. Transmission of parasites from animal to animal also happened, through close contact or exposure to infected feces."

Suffering himself from throat cancer, Russell took time off for treatment upon returning to England in September. WSPA appointed former Society for Protecting Animals Abroad technical Ian Dacre as interim director of disaster management. Dacre had been senior lecturer in equine health and dentistry at Massey University in New Zealand.

Though the waters subsided in early September, there was danger as ANIMAL PEOPLE went to press that the Bangladesh flooding could recur.

Upstream, "Assam is experiencing a third wave of floods at present which has affected 17 districts in the state," e-mailed news videographer Azam Siddiqui on September 11. "There has been significant loss of human lives and livestock. Forest guards and rangers in Kaziranga National Park, the Pabitora Wildlife Sanctuary and elsewhere are spending sleepless nights to keep a watch on the wildlife."

Assisting was a joint Friendicoes/Wildlife SOS relief team dispatched from Delhi, including three Assamese veterinarians and Wildlife SOS cofounder Kartick Satyanarayan.

Poachers exploiting the crisis, villagers trying to protect their property, and heavy vehicular traffic on roads near Kaziringa took a steep toll on wildlife, reported the Assam Tribune.

"The people of Bokakhat appealed to the Kaziranga National Park authority to create more highlands for sheltering the flood affected animals," the Assam Tribune added.

Elsewhere

 

European humane workers continued to assist into mid-September in the wake of midsummer fires that raced over the drought-parched hills of Croatia, Serbia, Macedonia, and Greece. Some of the fires were accidents, some were arsons, and some, alleged the Italian national animal welfare society ENPA, were caused by careless hunting practices. Brother and sister Nikos and Maria Dimopoulos, both over 70 years of age, were killed near Zaharo, Greece, while trying to rescue their donkey. Altogether, more than 70 people and thousands of farm animals perished due to the blazes.

Typhoon Man-Yi hit Okinawa on Friday, July 13. Reportedly the strong-est typhoon that ever reached Okinawa, it blew the roof off the Okinawa-American Animal Rescue Society shelter and seriously damaged two prefabricated buildings used for puppies, kittens, and post-surgical recovery, spokes-person Liz Rouse told ANIMAL PEOPLE.

"WSPA and Humane Society International will be assisting financially to make repairs and make it a little bit more typhoon proof," Rouse said.

--Merritt Clifton