Animals in Emergencies
All of you are reading this article because of your concern for the safety of your animals during an emergency in your community. This presentation will give you information on how to plan for your animals if there is a need to evacuate or to shelter them in place and how to find resources in your community to help you with your planning.
As an owner, you know your animal's health and safety rely entirely on you, especially in an emergency. As you probably know, the need for this information is huge. Our animals are a very important part of our lives.
For people whose animals are trained service animals, they allow their owners an independence they could not receive elsewhere. Animal ownership is extensive it's estimated that the average American household has 1.2 pets, not including wild or exotic animals, or animals of market or food value. Because animals can influence your decision to take protective actions, it's important you understand the steps to protect your animals if you are told by emergency officials to evacuate or shelter-in-place.
A hazardous chemical release from a train derailment or a flood can prevent you from caring for your animals for days if animals are not evacuated with you. Should a major event such as a devastating hurricane or earthquake occur, animals may go untended for weeks if owners do not take their animals with them or shelter them in a safe environment. For the most part people do a good job as far as planning for themselves and preparing their homes. Its just leaving the animals out of the loop and spending some time thinking about the animals' needs in a time of crisis a little bit of extra food, a place to, space in their cars or transportation lined up ahead of time whether its by relative or local transport. I think they just need to spend more time working on that aspect and treating their pets more like family.
As an owner, you hold the key to your animal's health and welfare. As you probably know, animals left behind may be found dead or never found at all. At best, they may need to be rescued, decontaminated, vaccinated, and treated for injuries before being returned to you - and this can be very traumatic for you and your animals. Highly valued animals may be stolen and sold before you can return home.
And left without food and water, normally docile animals can become vicious and be killed by law enforcement or wildlife officials to protect emergency responders or returning evacuees.
This article will enable you to identify hazards that could impact your animals and to develop a basic emergency supply kit for animal care. During this article animal care experts and veterinarians will explain why having recent photos of your animals and copies of identification and vaccination records are important in emergencies, how microchips work, how to plan to protect animals if you're away from home, why animals may have to be decontaminated after a hazardous event, and some basic precautions to take when animals return home.
Evacuation planning for animals is often an overlooked item in community emergency plans although some states are starting to develop certified disaster animal-care response teams to help counties cope with animal populations in major emergencies.
One recent change in preparedness occurred when the Pets Evacuation and Transportation Standards Act was signed into law in September, 2006. Nationally the Pets Evacuation and Transportation Standards Act or the PETS act have provided an incentive for local communities to comply with the requirements of that act.
And the requirements of that act are for communities that have plans to deal with household pets and service animals during the evacuation, to be able to evacuate, transport, and shelter those animals and provide services that are related to those issues.
This does not mean that public shelters must allow pets other than service animals to remain with owners, but those reasonable efforts must be made to accommodate the needs of individuals with animals when evacuations occur. Because of the potential cost and extra burden to communities to implement these requirements, having your own emergency plan that considers your animal's specific needs remains the best policy for you and your animals.
Emergency plans are important for all types of animals from household pets and trained service animals to highly valued or exotic animals, horses, poultry, and livestock. American Humane encourages responsible pet ownership regardless of what kind of pet.
So while most companion animals or pets are traditionally dogs or cats, many families choose some other pet, and often exotic animals such as snakes or alligators or iguanas or whatever. But regardless of the choice of the kind of pet, it's the pet owner's responsibility to plan for the care of that pet both during normal times and during emergencies.
Planning is especially important if you have multiple animals or the animals are highly valued, animals with medical problems or that need special care or food or trailers or other large vehicles for transport. You should also be aware that some states forbid trailers on official evacuation routes during an emergency to make sure passenger vehicles are given maximum leeway.
To leave an area. While this article touches on some issues associated with protecting large animals and livestock, commercial farm operators or people with large herds or highly valued stock or who manage zoos or aquariums should work with their state and local emergency officials and veterinarians to develop their specific emergency plans.