A few days ago I posted an article, Man Charged With Animal Cruelty Gets Dogs Back, about the man in Florida who left his dogs chained in the carport while he took shelter from a storm. It was great to come across a story about emergency pet shelters being set up for those animal owners evacuating New Orleans, and other southern parts of Louisiana, being hit by Gustav.
The Louisiana State Fairgrounds served as a mega-shelter, where teams from International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW), the Animal Rescue League of Boston, and other groups are watching over more than 1,000 cats, dogs, birds, and reptiles, according to Colleen Cullen of IFAW. She said animals are expected to be reunited with their owners by Friday.
After the disastrous aftermath of hurricane Katrina, where 1,000’s of pets were left abandoned and homeless, the state took lessons learned to prevent this from happening again.
“The state and the responding organizations are applying the lessons learned from those storms, and their aftermath, to increase the effectiveness of these evacuations and, most importantly, the safety of the people and their pets,” said Debrah Schnackenberg of American Humane.
The pet owners who took advantage of the emergency pet shelters were housed nearby in a sports stadium. All the owners are responsible for their pets care and feeding.
