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Tell Congress to Support Effort to Keep Animals Safe in Future Disasters

Please respond promptly and forward.

U.S. Representative Tom Lantos has introduced the Pets Evacuation and Transportation Standards Act of 2005 (H.R. 3858). This wise and welcome legislation will help create an all-encompassing plan for animals in future disaster responses and prevent the deaths of animals—and of guardians who refuse to abandon their companions—seen in Hurricane Katrina's wake.

If made law, H.R. 3858 will amend current federal law by making state and local emergency-preparedness authorities' receipt of Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) funds contingent on those authorities' creation and submission of approved plans to accommodate citizens who have "household pets and service animals."

Please urge your U.S. representative to support H.R. 3858 and ensure that the horrors seen in the Gulf Coast—for animals and those who care for them—never again visit our soil. Encourage your representative to make this vital legislation even stronger by widening the definition of "household pets and service animals" to include "fighting" dogs and "carriage" horses and mules—who were largely abandoned by the government and some humane agencies in New Orleans—and by establishing communication and cooperation between the government and animal protection groups in times of disaster.

I would like to request that everyone appeal to their legislators to support H.R. 3858, Pets Evacuation and Transportation Standards Act, which requires state and local authorities to include pets and service animals in their disaster evacuation plans. A letter would be more effective, but you can add your name to the petition at www.hsus.org. Please spread the word to all people in all walks of life so we can get this passed and avert the tragedy that is ongoing in New Orleans!

Only 8,000 of the estimated 50,000 cats and dogs have been rescued in the wake of hurricane Katrina, all this time later. Pet rescue groups are wrapping up their efforts and abandoning the animals that remain because they are either dead, too hard to find, or too shy to rescue quickly. It is to the point where it takes time and diligence to rescue 4 cats a day and the rescue organizations do not have the manpower or the patience. HSUS, the ASPCA, and LSU all closed their temporary shelters, other groups are ceasing search and rescue. I was done there doing rescue and the animals who were not caught haunt me. Animals that we saw but could not catch and never had time to go back for.

There are no hotel rooms available in the entire state of Louisiana or Mississippi -- the nearest available were 5 hours outside of New Orleans in Tuscaloosa. The area is full of servicemen, from telephone repair, to construction crews, Red Cross, and FEMA employees. The animal rescue groups had to establish tent cities an hour and a half outside of New Orleans. Rescue efforts were severely hampered due to a 7pm curfew and fear of the national guard, who packed guns and seemed trigger-happy to us. We were afraid of being shot for suspected looting even though there was nothing recoverable, nothing not covered in 8 inches of sludge. Some of the search and rescue folks crawled under houses in the sludge to try to rescue scared pets. Due to the curfew and the fear of indoor cats who suddenly found themselves outdoors in a world where they were hunted and killed by pit bulls, hardly any of the cats of New Orleans have been rescued even to this date. Hardly any of the animal rescue groups would even set traps for them, thinking they would catch ferals. One group who did was Best Friends (bestfriends.org) and they would catch only 4 cats, all just scared, tame house cats, per 20 traps set by day. Alley Cat Allies left traps overnight and reported that dogs would drag the cats in traps 10 feet or more. Dog fighting is legal in Louisiana and the pit bulls are trained fighters who kill smaller animals as they were trained to do. As a result, the pit bulls are valuable dogs there and the temporary shelters had incidents where some of them were stolen. I do not think the rescue groups will be able to adopt out these dogs so their will be a huge financial burden caring for them.

It was required to have a pass to enter the city, but I observed that the National Guard never checked the pass, but only asked our business. We drove in an SUV and they could easily see the traps in the back to lend credence to our story. I doubt a truck without windows would have passed the guards so easily. Some of the parishes, like St. Bernard parish, now have animal control tent cities of their own and demand that you turn trapped animals in to them. This is good if you want to do search and rescue on your own and have no group to care for the animals you catch. It might be bad in the long run because these are animal control groups who do not have the same no-kill policies as the rescuers. Rita blew away all the bugs and the weather is getting cool there at night now. There is not a blade of grass in the city, no place to sit down that is not covered in sludge, and there are no bathrooms or services of any kind. We went behind a bush in a Winn Dixie parking lot as our bathroom, threw trash out the windows to add to the giant trash heap that is New Orleans, and blew past stop signs, all things we would never do anywhere else. The rules are out the window and that is why we are afraid of the National Guard because they do not believe the laws apply down there either.

If you have vacation time, traps, and an SUV or station wagon, and don't mind lining it with tarps and carrying trapped cats out, I would highly recommend going to trap cats in New Orleans -- it will take real time to rescue them and real manpower. Best Friends, whose tent city is in Tylertown Mississippi, is a great group to work with--very polite and really cares about the animals. You might volunteer with them to get the lay of the land, and then strike out on your own to do search and rescue. Best Friends only sends 2 SUVs a day into the city...each rescue group is committing similar paltry search and rescue resources. Much more manpower is needed to actually get those terrified cats off the streets and into a safe and clean environment. It is a very rewarding way to spend your free time. I only wish that I had more.