Four hurricanes in six weeks stretch rescue efforts from the Caribbean islands to Texas

October 2, 2004 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2004:

ORLANDO–Hurricanes Charley, Frances, Ivan, and Jeanne
ripped through the Caribbean, Florida, and parts of other southern
states in August and September 2004 like the Four Horsemen of the
Apocalypse, scything down whatever they met.
In between, tropical storm Alex, Bonnie, and Gaston hit hard too.
More than 3,000 people were killed in Haiti, mainly by mud slides,
and at least 31,000 people lost their homes. The magnitude of the
human disaster tended to obscure the parallel animal disaster.
“An estimated 40,000 animals, including dogs, cats, and
farm animals, are in urgent need of help,” e-mailed Anne Ostberg of
the Pegasus Foundation, who helped to fund and coordinate Caribbean
relief efforts.
“The World Society for the Protection of Animals is working
with the Argentine army and ambassador to get veterinary supples to
Haiti,” Ostberg added, “with an immediate focus on disease control
and treating surviving farm animals. WSPA is also working with two
contacts in Port au Prince.”
Ostberg said WSPA was assisting as well in Cuba, the Dominican
Republic, Venezuela, and Panama.

Flood, fires, deadly hailstorm hit animal refuges around the Pacific rim

November 1, 2003 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2003:

Three weeks of fires threatening shelters, sanctuaries, and
sensitive wildlife habitat around the Pacific Rim were followed on
the night of November 2 by flash flooding that all but obliterated
Bukit Lawang, Indonesia.
“Bukit Lawang is the site of the original Sumatran orangutan
rehabilitation centre, established in the early 1970s by PanEco
Foundation president Regina Frey and her colleague Monica Borner,”
the Sumatran Orangutan Society e-mailed to International Primate
Protection League founder Shirley McGreal. “The village had
developed into a thriving resort.” “The Bohorok river
began to rise slowly,” SOS described, based on survivor accounts,
but “around 10.00 p.m. came a deluge bearing hundreds of fallen
trees. The town was located directly in the path of the surge as it
hit a bend and thrust over the Bohorok banks at full force.
Together, the water and timber pummeled the village for about three
hours.”
Wrote Suzanne Plunkett of Associated Press, “The death toll
hit 112 on November 6 as authorities promised to punish illegal
loggers held responsible for the disaster. At least 135 other people
are reported missing and feared dead.”

Orangutans in Kalimantan coal smoke & heated dispute

March 1, 2003 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2003:

DENVER–Underground coal fires beneath Kalimantan province,
Indonesia, could exterminate the island’s orangutans and sun bears,
Indonesian Ministry of Energy coalfield fire project chief Alfred
Whitehouse and East Georgia College professor Glenn Stracher told the
American Association for the Advancement of Science annual conference
in Denver on February 15, 2003.
Of the 20,000 remaining wild orangutans, about 15,000 live
in Kalimantan, Wbitehouse and Stracher said. Already imperiled by
habitat loss due to logging and slash-and-burn agriculture,
orangutans have now lost about half of Kutain National Park due to
underground fires and lethal smoke, according to Whitehouse and
Stracher.
The Kalimantan coal reserves apparently ignited after
slash-and-burn fires raced out of control during the drought years of
1997 and 1998. razing an area the size of Costa Rica. Since then,
at least 159 separate underground fires and perhaps as many as 3,000
have evaporated groundwater and dried surface vegetation, allowing
more fires to start and burn uncontrolled on the surface. The fires
emit as much carbon dioxide per year as all the motor vehicles in the
U.S. combined, Whitehouse and Stracher said.

Sanctuaries, wildlife feel the heat from global warming

November 1, 2002 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2002:

Already afflicted by economic drought pushing more than 100
nonprofit animal shelters and sanctuaries into dissolution, the
animal care community was hit during summer 2002 by fires, floods,
and drought too.
Disaster often overtook refuges and sanctuaries with unimagined speed.
Darlene Kobobel, 40, was just barely able to move 12 wolves
and wolf hybrids on short notice from her 8.5-acre Wolf Rescue Center
in Lake George, Colorado, in June, Baltimore Sun correspondent
Stephen Kiehl wrote. Housing the animals temporarily in a barn near
Colorado Springs, Kobobel fed them meat from elk and deer caught by
the flames.

Baja Animal Sanctuary is blown away by storm

June 1, 2002 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2002:

ROSARITO, Mexico–“The Baja Animal Sanctuary [as described
in the June 1999 edition of ANIMAL PEOPLE] is virtually gone, gone,
gone,” founder Sunny Benedict told volunteers and donors in a
February 11 letter distributed by volunteer Maureen Quinn.
“The same horrible Santa Ana winds that created the canyon
fires in the vicinity of Fallbrook, California,” causing
evacuations of people and animals, “came through Rosarito,”
Benedict explained. “All of the fencing, tarpaulins for shade,
dog houses, aluminum roofing, and even the roof on the house are
gone. And there was nothing we could do but watch.

Editorial: Lessons from the Red Cross debacle

November 1, 2001 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2001:

ANIMAL PEOPLE had planned that this very late November 2001
edition would feature our first-hand investigative report on the
success of the “No homeless animals, no-kill, no shelter” approach
to dog and cat overpopulation taken by the Veterinary Licensing Board
and allied animal welfare groups in Costa Rica. Seeing is believing,
and after nearly two weeks in Costa Rica, counting dogs and cats and
observing how they are faring wherever we went, we can testify that
the Costa Rican animal care community has a lot to teach the world.
But that report will have to wait until our December edition
appears, when it can help to inspire a happy and productive New
Year. We fell behind in May, when ANIMAL PEOPLE publisher Kim
Bartlett contracted pneumonia following two distressful hours of
photographically documenting the sale of dogs and cats for meat at
the Moran Market near Seoul, South Korea. Then we held up
production of our September edition for an extra week to include
coverage of the animal aspects of the terrorist attacks of September
11.

Miracle cats and great dogs on the job at 9/11 crash sites

October 1, 2001 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, October 2001:

NEW YORK CITY; ALLENTOWN, Pa.–Woodie, a seven-year-old
ex-stray whose human says he looks like a groundhog, turned up in
the remnants of her heavily damaged home in Stoneycreek Township,
Pennsylvania, on September 24.
Precious, a tiny Persian even before enduring 18 days
without food, was found on September 29 by a North Carolina State
Animal Response Team search dog on the debris-strewn roof of an
apartment house across Liberty Street from the site of the collapsed
World Trade Center in New York City. Emergency workers took the dog
to the roof after receiving a report that someone had heard a cat
crying in the vicinity. Precious suffered from eye injuries, burnt
paws, and smoke and dust inhalation, but apparently found enough
rainwater to drink to avoid fatal dehydration.

“Dog” is “God” spelled backward

September 1, 2001 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, September 2001:

The animal dimensions of the September 11 terrorist
hijackings of jetliners and mass murders at the World Trade Center,
the Pentagon, and Somerset County, Pennsylvania, were as evident
as the search-and-rescue dogs sent to each scene to help find
survivors and remains, the bomb-sniffing dogs at airports whose
numbers suddenly seem all too few, and the many pets in transit who
were held overnight in air terminals when their flights were grounded.
Many stranded people probably wished they could hug a dog or
cat during the 30-to-48 hours before air travel resumed, and many of
the animals would have welcomed the attention, but there was no way
for anyone to make pet-sharing arrangements.

Tropical Storm Allison kills 35,000 lab animals

June 1, 2001 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, June 2001:

HOUSTON–Flash-flooding caused by Tropical Storm Allison killed an estimated 30,000 animals between 2:00 and 2:30 a.m. on June 9 at the Baylor College of Medicine, and killed 4,700 more at the nearby University of Texas-Houston Health Science Center.

The UT losses included several hundred rabbits, 78 monkeys used mostly in longterm intelligence research, and 35 dogs. Most of the other animal victims were mice and rats. The flooding revealed an unforseen weakness in the design of the two basement animal care facilities.

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