Post-Katrina conflicts & rescues go on

April 2, 2006 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 2006:

BATON ROUGE–A Louisiana source involved in undercover law
enforcement against illegal animal fighting alerted ANIMAL PEOPLE
late on February 21, 2006 that state attorney general Charles Foti
had begun investigating Humane Society of the U.S. fundraising and
expenditures in connection with Hurricane Katrina.
Named the lead agency for animal relief by the Fed-eral
Emergency Management Administration, HSUS raised more than $30
million for Katrina aid, and had as many as 200 workers in the
disaster area in September and October 2005.
HSUS confirmed the report within 24 hours, but Foti’s office
said nothing until spokesperson Kris Wartelle acknowledged the “basic
beginning of an inquiry” to Robert Travis Scott of the New Orleans
Times-Picayune on March 16. “She said Foti has made no accusations
of wrongdoing, and declined to give more details,” Scott wrote.
“There’s no question that cockfighters, hunters, and others
in Louisiana are constantly looking to damage our credibility,” HSUS
president Wayne Pacelle told ANIMAL PEOPLE on February 22. “Since
they cannot compete with our message that cockfighting is cruel, they
attack the messenger.”

Pakistan quake animal victims still need help

December 2, 2005 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2005:

KARACHI–More than two months after the devastating
earthquake of October 5, 2005, the arrival of winter has made the
plight of animals and displaced humans more desperate than ever in
the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan.
Snowstorms have meanwhile made delivering aid to the isolated
region more difficult than ever. More than 87,000 humans are known
to have been killed in the earthquake itself. Others, now living in
tents, have died from malnutrition and exposure. As many as 3.5
million people lost their homes. No statistics exist for the toll on
animals. Pastured livestock mostly survived the earthquake, but
thousands lost their caretakers. Refugees released the birds from
the Jalalabad Zoo in Muzaffarabad and moved into the cages, reported
Munir Ahmad of Associated Press.
“I would recommend sending donations to both the World
Society for the Protection of Animals and the Brooke Fund for
Animals,” Pakistan Animal Welfare Society representative Mahera Omar
relayed to ANIMAL PEOPLE through Seattle activist Eileen Weintraub.
“After their initial emergency response,” described in the November
2005 edition of ANIMAL PEOPLE, “both organizations have formulated
long term strategies and their veterinarians are in the field
providing veterinary care and arranging for shelter for the animal
victims.

Hurricane Katrina & Rita rescuers shift gears from rescue & reunion to rehoming

December 2, 2005 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, December 2005:

NEW ORLEANS–All animals rescued from the aftermath of
Hurricanes Katrina and Rita became eligible for adoption on December
15, 2005, following the expiration of the last mandatory holding
periods prescribed by the Louisiana and Mississipi state
veterinarians.
“We’re setting up two new rescue centers, in New Orleans and
Gulfport,” Best Friends Animal Society president Michael Mountain
told supporters. “Rescue teams will be bringing animals there for an
official 5-day holding period in case the pets still have a local
family. After that, we’ll be driving or flying them to carefully
chosen shelters around the country to be placed in good new loving
homes.
“Best Friends is functioning as the lead agency in this
effort,” Mountain continued. “The Humane Society of the United
States, the American SPCA, and United Animal Nations are helping to
fund the rescue centers. UAN is also providing volunteer support.
The American Humane Association has offered their emergency rescue
truck to do sterilizations if needed. The Helen Woodward Animal
Center will be bringing many of the rescued pets into their
nationwide ‘Home for the Holidays’ adoption drive,” Mountain added.

Fate of rescued animals goes to court

November 2, 2005 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2005:

Pasado’s Safe Haven, of Sultan, Washington, directing one
of the major ad hoc rescue centers near New Orleans, suffered a
major embarrassment after sending 61 pit bull terriers to Every Dog
Needs A Home, also known as the EDNAH Animal Rescue & Sanctuary, in
Gamaliel, Arkansas.
Another 18 pit bulls were sent to EDNAH by the Humane Society
of Louisiana, which since losing its own facilities to Katrina has
operated from a corner of the St. Francis Animal Sanctuary in
Tylertown, Mississippi.
An October 21 visit to EDNAH by Baxter County Sheriff John
Montgomery found more than 400 dogs packed into a two-acre lot, as
many as 75 of them running loose. One dog was found dead.
Founders William Hanson, 41, and his wife Tammy Hanson, 38,
were charged with cruelty and released on $1,000 bond each.
“It’s definitely not the type of facility that we thought it
was,” Pasado’s representative Diane Goodrich told Jane Stewart of the
Arkansas Democrat-Gazette.
“Goodrich said the Pasado dogs arrived at Hanson’s shelter on
October 17, delivered in individual cages that were lined up on a
gravel road inside the shelter entrance. Apparently the animals and
the cages had not been moved since their arrival,” Stewart wrote.

Coastal pastures became better habitat for sea cows than cattle

November 2, 2005 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2005:

Hurricanes Katrina and Rita between them submerged as much as
a third of the cattle grazing land in Louisiana. Rainfall from Wilma
perpetuated conditions that had Debra Barlow of Hopeful Haven Equine
Rescue wishing for an ark.
“We are a horse rescue organization, but have opened our
arms to include all the livestock we can help,” Barlow e-mailed to
Brenda Shoss of Kinship Circle, whose daily bulletins throughout the
fall 2005 hurricane season made her the unofficial dispatcher for
rescue efforts from Alabama to Texas.
“We have rescued emus, cattle, horses, you name it,”
Barlow continued. “The rescued animals have been put in holding pens
since they can’t graze the saltwater-saturated alfalfa fields. The
salt content made the animals dehydrated and delusional. We are
hoping to flush the saltwater absorbed out their systems with feed,
clean water and hay.”
“The Army used helicopters to search for thousands of cattle
feared stranded in high water, amid reports that more than 4,000 may
have been killed in Cameron Parish alone,” Associated Press reported
after Rita hit.

Hurricanes Stan, Tammy, Wilma, & unnamed twisters add to catastrophe

November 2, 2005 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2005:

WEST PALM BEACH–Hurricane Wilma, after Hurricanes Katrina
and Rita, might have seemed anticlimactic to those who were not hit
by it. To those who were, including Pegasus Foundation program
officer Anne M. Ostberg, whose organization specializes in assisting
humane work in island nations, it was the real thing.
Wilma hit the west end of Grand Bahama island on October 24,
displacing as many as 4,000 people and their animals. The Humane
Society of Grand Bahama suffered only damaged fencing, Ostberg
e-mailed, based on a report from director Elizabeth Burrows, but
needed urgent help to feed and water displaced animals.
“The Bahamas Humane Society in Nassau sent inspector Carl
Thurston to Grand Bahama on November 1 to spend four days assisting,”
Ostberg said. “Inspector Thurston also delivered supplies and
equipment. Humane Society International provided some funding to
Bahamas Humane, and the Pegasus Foundation wired $1,000 to the Kohn
Foundation, a Colorado charity that acts as a fiscal agent for the
Humane Society of Grand Bahama.
“At this end,” Osteberg added, “the barn at the Pegasus
Foundation’s animal sanctuary in Florida lost part of its roof, but
the animals and people were unhurt. The building where our West Palm
Beach offices were located was badly damaged, but again, no one was
hurt.”

Wildlife in the hard-hit Gulf region is most imperiled by human activity

November 2, 2005 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2005:

Hurricane Katrina first hit wildlife along the east coast of Florida.
“About 200 loggerhead sea turtle hatchlings born on
Hutchinson Island were unable to crawl through deposits of sea grass
washed ashore by the storm,” Palm Beach Post staff writer Kimberly
Miller reported. “Beachgoers from Delray Beach south found about two
dozen hatchlings that experts believe made it into the water, but
were spit back worn out onto the beach by the waves.”
Treated for dehydration and exhaustion by the Gumbo Limbo
Environmental Complex in Boca Raton and the Marinelife Center in Juno
Beach, most were returned to the sea within days.
There they encountered a new threat. After hurricanes the
National Marine Fisheries Service often suspends the requirement that
shrimpers must use turtle exclusion devices (TEDS) on their nets,
because floating debris often fouls TEDS and tears nets.
The timing of Hurricanes Katrina, Rita, and Wilma meant
that the TED rule was continuously suspended from September 26 to
November 23.
Meanwhile, as Katrina roared westward, about 50 sea turtle
nests were destroyed along the Alabama coast. Habitat for the
endangered Alabama beach mouse and red-cockaded woodpecker was also
destroyed.

Visakha SPCA digs out after floods, fights disease outbreaks

November 2, 2005 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2005:

VISAKHAPATNAM–Already hit by flooding after a September
19 cyclone, the Visakha SPCA was inundated twice more by further
cyclones before the end of October.
Monsoon rains and occasional cyclones are part of the normal
weather cycle along the Bay of Bengal, but fall 2005 brought the
region triple the usual rainfall.
The impact was felt as far south as Chennai, where the St.
Thomas Mount Animal Birth Control Center was badly damaged by flash
flooding, Blue Cross of India chief executive Chinny Krishna told
ANIMAL PEOPLE, and part of the Blue Cross shelter at Guindy was
briefly awash.
“Fortunately, thanks to our volunteer Shanthi, all animals
in the lower-lying enclosures were moved out to the main building,”
Krishna said.
The Visakha SPCA began clean-up and rebuilding at the same
time as extending emergency aid to surrounding areas, then had to
start over after the destruction of a retaining wall by the first
flood allowed a second and third flood.

Remoteness of deadly Pakistan earthquake thwarts aid

November 1, 2005 Dylan Forest Leave a comment

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, November 2005:

KARACHI–An earthquake measuring 7.6 on the Richter scale
killed more than 30,000 people and countless animals on October 5,
2005 in the North West Frontier Province of Pakistan.
The remoteness of the region, lack of established animal
welfare infrastructure anywhere in Pakistan, and lack of official
interest in helping animals thwarted prompt response by international
organizations.
“I just got back to Karachi after spending two weeks filming
in Balakot.” e-mailed Pakistan Animal Welfare Society representative
and Geo TV assistant producer Mahera Omar on November 11.
Omar, more than a month after the earthquake, was nonetheless among
the first pro-animal representatives to bring back first-hand
testimony about what is needed.
“Balakot is a small town in the North West Frontier Province,
about 60 miles north of Islamabad,” Omar explained. “Located near
the quake’s epicenter, it is said to be among the worst devastated.
“We visited a few small villages up in the mountains around
Balakot,” Omar recounted. “The people in these areas depend on
subsistence farming and their livestock. Many of the livestock have
been killed. The rest are without any sort of shelter. Many people
are still without tents. Some have provided makeshift shelters for
their animals, using cloth or plastic sheets. Without shelter,
their livestock will not survive the harsh winter. The animals also
require veterinary care.

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