On The Prowl wth Nick Mays

NEW ORLEANS — CATS POSE a unique set of challenges for rescue units here in this ghost town where animals may now outnumber residents, who have been ordered to leave the Big Easy until officials can restore power, drain out the water, decontaminate a city that smells of rotting garbage, waste, and most certainly death.

This poses huge problems for the animal rescue teams, such as those sent in by the Humane Society of the United States’

Thursday morning, under yet another day of blistering sun, HSUS’s Disaster Animal Response Teams (DART), as well as volunteer rescuers from all over the country, found themselves locked in a battle to save cats, hundreds of them, whose traits of hiding in tight spaces and avoiding strangers made for lengthy and sometimes frustrating encounters.

One two-truck team, led by Bruce Earnest, a DART veteran, spent a good portion of the morning chasing down felines in two residences. The first of the two, a carriage house on Tchoupitoulas, served as an object lesson on the difficulties in rounding up cats who’d prefer to remain independent, even if it could ultimately cost them their lives.

The owner of the carriage house had left the key with volunteers at the Lamar-Dixon Expo Centre in Gonzales, Louisiana, where The HSUS and the Louisiana SPCA have set up a temporary shelter and staging area. The owner also left directions as well as the number of cats who needed rescuing: a staggering 13. Every member on Earnest’s team knew what that likely meant.

Sure enough, as soon as HSUS volunteer Jane Garrison opened the door to the tiny, three-room carriage house, the stench assaulted her nostrils. Faeces and urine covered almost every square inch of the dwelling, from the kitchen floor to the futon mattress in the bedroom, to the overflowing litter box in the back bathroom. It was as if someone had poured a 60-gallon drum of ammonia in the house.

A pair of cats was secured in relatively short order, although not without incident. The second, grabbed by HSUS volunteer Drew Moore from Portland, Oregon, shredded his rubber gloves as he placed the frightened animal into a carrier. Moore, to the astonishment of all, came away without a single scratch. The remaining cats proved to be even more troublesome.

As Garrison and Earnest flushed the cats from their bathroom hideaway, the animalsbolted and zigzagged their away across the litter-strewn bedroom and directly into the dim, densely packed kitchen. With all the cats huddled in the kitchen, the team constructed a blockade consisting of flimsy cardboard boxes, a large package of paper towels, cat carriers, and sheets, in an attempt to keep the animals isolated in this area. The team constructed a similar makeshift barrier to the bathroom entrance.

Alone in the kitchen, Moore tried to grab the first of about 10 cats huddled in dank corners and cabinets. But before he could get a hold, the cat burst his way through the kitchen blockade, across the bedroom, and wormed his way through the bathroom barrier. Undaunted, the team constructed a more impermeable barrier, using a dirty piece of luggage, a blanket and even a piece of wire mesh found inexplicably in the house. Once again, this Leavenworth prison wall proved no match for one escape artist. Another feline dug her way through the barrier and ran for the bathroom.

Finally, Earnest suggested changing tactics. Garrison quickly agreed.
Back outside the carriage house, the team members encountered a number of people gathered there to get the team's attention, including a member of the National Guard who had a wildlife and environmental background. She offered the Guard's help, and a DART member asked if the military had any traps that could be used at the carriage house. The guardswoman readily agreed to check into it.
Second Time’s a Charm

Meanwhile, a tall man in a T-shirt and shorts was standing by, patiently waiting for his turn to speak. Once he did, Wendell Miller explained that a friend of a friend had six cats trapped in a locked house on nearby Camp Street. Miller only had a key to the fenced gate, and he wanted the team's assistance breaking into the home and rescuing the animals.

The house was a veritable fortress. Not only did it have a locked brick-and-iron fence, but it also had a locked wrought-iron gate in front of a heavy wooden door. The team determined the only way in was through the French doors leading into a side room filled with prints and paintings of dogs and cats in various costumes.

But even the seemingly simple task of smashing a glass door proved tricky. It was a double-pane door with safety-tempered glass, which surprisingly deflected the blows of Earnest’s crowbar. That's when Miller, without prompting, picked up a giant piece of brick and hurled it at the door. It shattered the first layer of glass. Earnest finished off the second pane with yet another brick.
The same smells of ammonia and faeces that assaulted the senses at the carriage house were present here, too, just in smaller doses. Even though Miller reported that the cats were supposed to be confined to three rooms, it was clear the animals had the run of the spacious house. Faeces littered almost every room.

Moore and Earnest somehow found and captured two cats buried between the washer and drier in a narrow room crowded with folded and loose clothes, which provided ideal hiding places for fearful felines. Garrison discovered cats three and four hiding under the bed in the main bedroom, which was likewise brimming with stacks of carefully folded clothes, not to mention a network of furniture that afforded even more secure locations for small animals. Using tiny tins of cat food and enormous amounts of patience, Garrison lay on her stomach for minute after minute after minute, cooing and sweet-talking the cats out of their dark lairs.

The final two cats were also discovered in the same bedroom. Earnest secured cat number five behind a heavy dresser, while the last feline, a beautiful black-and-white creature, decided to play a cat-and-mouse game with Moore.

Moore initially located the cat under a piece of furniture, behind a stack of clothes, but when he tried to grab the animal, he flitted to a space under the bed. Moore patiently tried to woo the animal out, but once again the cat scampered away—only to stop dead in his tracks at the site of another rescue team member. That’s when, after minutes of pursuing the animal, Moore easily grabbed the frozen cat and put him into a carrier.

By the time its Thursday adventures were over, Earnest's team had rescued approximately 15 cats from the Uptown neighbourhood of New Orleans.

But the round-up operations for cats, dogs and other abandoned pets continues…

 

Rescue Arrives For Lucky Pets Thanks To HSUS
FOR SOME pets stranded in New Orleans in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, help has arrived thanks to the Humane Society of the United States.

Members of the HSUS National Disaster Animal Response Team (DART) entered New Orleans alongside staff members of the Louisiana Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (LSPCA) on the morning of Sunday, September 4th.

It’s a major turning point for pets and other animals stranded in the city, which had been closed off to animal rescuers from several rescue organisations and charities by federal and state authorities that had been closely controlling access in attempts to handle the confusion and danger that has beset the city.


As HSUS rescuer Diane Webber put it earlier in the day, "It may be too late for some. It may be just in time for others."

The desperate calls being taken at the HSUS’s emergency call centre in Washington showed there is no time to lose: Hundreds, possibly thousands of companion animals, left behind by owners who could not take them along, wait for their owners or for rescue - in bathrooms, attics, bedrooms, office suites, hospital corridors - wherever their desperate owners believed they could survive a few days on their own. The lucky ones have food and water for a few days. But their luck won’t hold for too many days longer.

"Please break in when you get somebody over there," one caller to the HSUS hotline pled. The caller was one of many forced to leave their animals behind as they fled Katrina’s approach. "Please help, my neighbour was feeding the cats but she fled when the looting began," a second caller implored. "Could you just help get some medicine to my pet?" another person asked. "I will get my keys to your team," a man told one HSUS responder. "Just get in there and get my cat, please."

HSUS responders also heard from people associated with the situations at Lindy Boggs Hospital & Mercy Hospital, where dozens of staff members’ pets were being housed on upper levels. At one of the hospitals, reportedly, there is just a single doctor caring for all of the animals; according to callers, he committed himself to staying behind to provide care after rescue workers evacuated patients and staff members late last week.

HSUS rescuers, working with members of the Humane Society of South Mississippi, picked up 42 cats & 89 dogs in Gulfport, Mississippi—survivors of a 30-foot storm surge that hit the facility where they had been housed. The animals were driven to a staging area and temporary shelter in Jackson, where they were evaluated and treated. Eventually, these fortunate animals will be transferred to the care of animal shelters around the country.

 

Calls of Compassion
Those staffing the HSUS telephones have also answered calls from thousands of compassionate people, offering practical assistance, volunteering to go to the impact zones, and adding their funds to those already collected by The HSUS since Katrina’s ruinous strike -- funds that will be poured into our relief efforts as they unfold in the days ahead.

 

World Society for the Protection of Animals
An urgent response is getting underway to aid the animal victims of Hurricane Katrina. Dogs, cats, horses, alligators and even dolphins have all found themselves displaced by this catastrophe, which has devastated US coastal areas in Louisiana and Mississippi.

Both the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) and American Humane Association (AHA) have specially outfitted disaster relief vehicles and staff with advanced training in providing disaster relief for animals. HSUS has coordinated with the Days End Farm Horse Rescue so they will have the ability to help large animals as well as pets. In addition, the Animal Rescue League of Boston plans to send staff to work with AHA staff to rescue pets and other animals and Noah's Wish, an organisation specialising in disaster relief and rescue missions, is preparing to enter the disaster zone to rescue as many surviving animals as possible.

Louisiana SPCA has lost its entire animal shelter and many of their staff have lost their homes and possessions. To date, WSPA member society the Houston SPCA has taken in 260 animals that had to be evacuated from the Louisiana SPCA's shelter. These animals are currently being put up for adoption. In the longer term, a major rebuilding of the animal welfare infrastructure will be needed.

In the coming months, WSPA will fund some major recovery projects in the stricken area, helping to rebuild the animal welfare infrastructure so badly affected by Hurricane Katrina.

WSPA is going to contribute to the relief effort by assisting those animal welfare organisations currently working in the devastated area. We will donate funds to support efforts in animal rescue, shelter and transportation.

We are extremely grateful to all our supporters who have already stepped forward with donations to assist the relief effort. More funds are needed to help us go to the aid of animals caught up in this and other disasters.

0800 616 919 - Call WSPA to make a donation
Lines are open from 9am - 5.00pm, Monday to Friday