Katrina Pets: In the Path?
On Tuesday, the North Shore Animal League — the world's largest no-kill pet adoption organization — called on the U.S. government to take "immediate action" to evacuate thousands of pets left homeless by Hurricane Katrina from areas in the path of Hurricane Rita, said the organization in a press release.
"This storm couldn't come at a worse time for these animals who are already in a race against time to survive given the lack of food, water and the 118° heat," said the organization's lead veterinarian, Eve Ognibene, in the release.
"This is a crisis of unprecedented proportions," she added.
Earlier this week, officials at the Lamar-Dixon Expo Center and 4-H Center in Gonzales, La., began evacuating some 1,300 animals affected by Hurricane Katrina, said the American Humane Association in a press release on Wednesday.
"We've already transported thousands of animals out of harm's way," said Dick Green, the American Humane Society's Animal Emergency Services team leader and an operations chief at the Lamar-Dixon shelter, in the release.
"We want as many as possible to be moved to safer locations until they can be placed in foster homes or reunited with their families."
The American Humane Association, along with other animal welfare organizations, suspended their rescue operations in New Orleans on Thursday as Hurricane Rita made its approach.
"We don't want to put our responders or the animals they are serving at risk for injury so we're doing all we can to stand by until this storm passes and we can get back to work," said Green in the release.
"We are still finding survivors and need to do all we can to bring them to the shelters."
