“Too many stray dogs and cattle”
From ANIMAL PEOPLE, March 2005:
CHENNAI, VISAKHAPATNAM, PORT BLAIR
–The first phase of disaster relief is rescue.
Then comes accommodating refuges, followed by
rebuilding.
“Our immediate relief activities have
been now replaced by the medium term to long term
relief work made necessary by the animals we have
rescued,” Blue Cross of India director Chinny
Krishna told ANIMAL PEOPLE, two months after the
December 26, 2004 tsunami.
Eager to start rebuilding, including
developing India’s first formal animal disaster
relief plan, Krishna found himself still in the
middle of refugee accommodation.
“The large number of rescued animals, as
well as those surrendered by people who said they
found them in their neighborhoods, have made
things difficult at our Guindy center,” Krishna
explained. “A rescued pig and her litter of
eight piglets occupy a large area behind our
cattle shed. Rescued dogs occupy every available
step on the staircases, and the recent rains in
Chennai have sent all the dogs normally in the
four-acre outdoor part of the shelter scurrying
indoors to have a roof over their heads!”