Friday, September 16, 2005
The Animals Need Help
A message from the Humane Society. Please click on the link; it takes two seconds to have an email sent to all the relevant officials.
On Wednesday, one of our Disaster Animal Response Teams in New Orleans rescued a St. Bernard from a rooftop – a dog they described as the most emaciated animal they had ever seen in all their years of handling animals. The veterinarian who treated the dog was shocked that the animal, who weighed just 40 pounds, was still alive.
Who helped us rescue this animal? It was several National Guardsmen, who heeded our rescuers’ pleas to take them through the water on a tank so they could get up on the roof to save the dog.
But the troops’ actions were not ordered by the National Guard – nor by the White House, the Defense Department, the Department of Homeland Security, or the state of Louisiana. In fact, despite our repeated requests, none of these entities has formally agreed to marshal their ground forces to help rescue the pets and other animals slowly starving to death in the affected areas.
At a press conference just a few hours ago, I implored the federal government to come up with the nation's first animal rescue plan. Now, I am writing to ask you to give them the same message: Please call or email President Bush and other officials today and urge them to help us before it’s too late.
Time is running out for these animals. Every hour that passes means more pets, locked behind closed doors in the disaster zone, will die of starvation. Our teams are working as hard as they can to reach as many pets as they can - and as we reported to you on Wednesday, we’ve rescued thousands. But there are thousands more.