Rescuing Pets Matters: Notes from the Disaster in Japan

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UPDATE 3/17:  Welfare groups race to rescue Japan's abandoned animals. 
It is hard to believe that things could get worse but they have. Foreign evacuations have left many pets stranded. 

World Vets is working with local groups - please give them what help you can. 

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This photo appeared in a Japanese newspaper on Sunday. It shows a Japanese fireman returning a little dog just rescued from the mud and rubble to it's owner. It reminds me how important it is to consider the animals caught up in this disaster. Rescuing beloved pets offers tremendous comfort to their owners who are suffering from trauma, grief and shock. It is well known that pets help their owners recover from PTSD (post traumatic stress disorder) the pain of which now haunts those who survived. 

Let us not forget that the first responders are dealing with death and pain on a level that few of us can imagine. For them, seeing a survivor reunited with a loved one, whether that loved one has two legs or four, can offer a life-affirming moment of joy. For many of these volunteers it is the only reward they will ever have - or want - for doing this work.

UPDATE 3/15:  Japanese Rescuers Pull Together To Save Pets 

The USDA Emergency Preparedness page notes that:

One of the many important lessons learned after Hurricane Katrina is that making sure pets are safe and well-cared-for during a disaster can make it easier to evacuate their owners - a practice proven to save many human lives.

As Natlie Angier noted in today's New York Times, the Creature Connection is a part of our ancient past and runs very deep. She writes:

Researchers trace the roots of our animal love to our distinctly human capacity to infer the mental states of others, a talent that archaeological evidence suggests emerged anywhere from 50,000 to 100,000 years ago.

Ms. Algier states a fact well known to most pet owners:

People are passionate about their companion animals ... (and) may even be willing to die for their pets. “In studies done on why people refused to evacuate New Orleans during Katrina,” said Dr. Herzog, “a surprising number said they could not leave their pets behind."

Japan has approximately 23 million pets and 17 million children under the age of 16. Please give them what help you can. (1)

If you would like to aid the animals and people in Japan I recommend donating to World Vets and/or Doctors Without Borders.


UPDATE 3/15: World Vets Deploy To Japan

Search and Rescue Teams


The Los Angeles Search and Rescue Team, and their 12 dogs, have just landed in Tokyo (having returned only a week ago from their mission in Christchurch, New Zealand) .

Let us hope that the Japanese bureaucrats who held up the work of search team and rescue teams from all of the world yesterday, keeping them caught in a mass of useless paperwork, are now a bit more cooperative.

Pearl's Story

Perl, a black lab rescued from a shelter in California, now works as a search and rescue dog. Her story has been turned into a book with illustrations from local school children. Sales from A New Job For Pearl will go to go help the search and rescue efforts in Japan.

Cat Island (AKA Tashirojima)

Cat lovers world-wide have been worried about Cat's Island. This tiny island is known for it's population of elderly fishing folks, it's cat shrine and it's many cats. (2) Cat Island is located off the coast of Japn, right near the epicenter, close to the mainland city of Sendai which was hit so hard by the tsunami. Word from a contact of mine in Japan and recent notes at the website Conscious Cats, seems to indicate that many inhabitants did indeed survive, although the dock is destroyed and the 70 elderly residents and the 100+ cats that live there are greatly in need of food, shelter and medical help.

UPDATE  3/20: Latest updates on Cat Island

UPDATE 3/15: CONFIRMED: CAT'S ISLAND SURVIVED QUAKE  


Now, excuse me while I go hug my fur beasts. I will be offering more updates as news comes in on my Twitter page @birdgarden

Go well, stay well,

Sia

Endnotes:

(1) Japanese census, 2009


(2) Wikipedia notes:

In the past, the islanders raised silkworms for silk, and cats were kept in order to keep the mouse population down (because mice are a natural predator of silkworms). Fixed-net fishing was popular on the island after the Edo Period and fishermen from other areas would come and stay on the island overnight. The cats would go to the inns where the fishermen were staying and beg for scraps. Over time, the fishermen developed a fondness for the cats and would observe the cats closely, interpreting their actions as predictions of the weather and fish patterns. One day, when the fishermen were collecting rocks to use with the fixed-nets, a stray rock fell and killed one of the cats. The fishermen, feeling sorry for the loss of the cat, buried it and enshrined it at this location on the island.

Photo:

from Japan Earthquake Animal Rescue and Support (Facebook Page)

Related Stories: 

Two Dogs Defy The Wave

Easing The Way With The Aid of An Animal

Time to Return the Favor to Japan: One of the World's First Responders. 

Good News for the Florida Panther

A rare photo of a Florida Panther and her cubs
taken by Biologist Darrel Land

I thought you might enjoy some good news today:

A rare photograph taken last month of a Florida panther and her two kittens is making the e-mail rounds among wildlife biologists and conservation partners who have toiled for decades to restore the big cat’s habitat.

...Picayune Strand, a 55,000-acre chunk of the Everglades, was drained and partially developed decades ago to build a subdivision. The development failed, and over the years the state and federal governments spent $150 million to purchase the land lot by lot. State and federal biologists consider the Picayune Strand an essential piece of remaining panther habitat, connecting other public lands that include the Florida Panther National Wildlife Refuge, Everglades National Park and Fakahatchee Strand Preserve State Park. Since the early 1990s, when the Florida panther was on the brink of extinction, the population in the wild is still less than 100.

Full Story here.

Work is now being done to restore water to the area.

Congratulations and best wishes for everyone who made this possible. You must be so proud.

Sia

Note: The young of large cats are called "cubs". The term "kittens" is used for smaller cats.

Links

Florida Panther information

Information on the Restoration Project and the Everglades Plan

Green Tips for Thanksgiving & Presidential Puppy Watch

Today I would like to share some Green Tips for Thanksgiving from our friends at TreeHugger. These include directions on cooking a sustainable Thanksgiving dinner.





Presidential Puppy Watch:

Meanwhile, the Presidential Puppy Watch continues. Kudos to Michelle Obama and her family for deciding to choose a shelter dog. A lovely story in the LA Times notes that animal shelters around the country are grateful for the spotlight this has put on their work.

Can't Adopt? Why Not Foster?

Shelters around the country are full as more and more people loose their homes. If you can't adopt a pet, perhaps you could be a temporary foster parent to some needy cats and dogs? Share the love - it's a very rewarding thing to do.

Got Blankets?

Shelters also need: dog, cat and kitten food, toys, paper towels, old blankets, cloth towels, and old pet medications that you may have that are still viable.

Cats Like Turkey, Too, and These Cats are 50% Off Through November:

On a local note: The Cat Adoption Team's No Kill Cat Shelter in Sherwood, Oregon is full, and they are offering 50% off of all adoptions for both cats and kittens through November 30th.

Does Fluffy need fixing? They are also offering a low cost spay and neuter clinic through November 30th - Check it out.

Sia

Photo: As part of a campaign to stop puppy mills, then-Senator Barack Obama posed at the Lincoln Memorial with Baby, a poodle who survived a puppy mill but lost one of her legs from the ordeal. The image will appear in the upcoming book, "A Rare Breed of Love" by Jana Kohl.

Want A Job? How About Saving the Planet?

The Iberian Lynx Could Use A Hand...and A Lot More Rabbits: (1)

The BBC reports that "More than 8,000 conservationists and policy makers are in Barcelona, Spain, for the IUCN World Conservation Congress."

The focus at this congress is both broad and deep. It involves not just saving wildlife but changing the way conservation works.

Richard Black writes:

Saving the planet now needs lawyers, economists, engineers, chemists, politicians, as well as those steeped in the traditional disciplines..

The great fields of the green world now contain lawyers, to draft environmental treaties and laws and make sure people obey them. Economists calculate the financial costs of nature loss and the benefits of sustainable businesses.

Engineers work out how to re-invigorate dying watercourses. Communications chiefs look for new ways of getting the word out. Hunters run sustainable trophy-hunting schemes that raise money for conservation.

Gender specialists engage women in conservation in societies where they may not have a lot of power. Entrepreneurs leverage funds - a term you would never hear from an ecologist - for green technologies.

It's a rich ecosystem.

And it's virtually an open door. Just make sure you have a skill to bring, plus the commitment to work long hours for far less money than you could earn elsewhere, [Sia's note: don't a lot of us do that already?] and the environmental family will find a home for you somewhere.

Ecotopia

The Daily Green tells us that people who have been downsized are finding jobs in the green sector.

In many ways, Jobson's career mirrors that of the nation. Given Jimmy Carter's historic efforts to promote energy conservation (not to mention that pesky oil crisis), things were looking pretty green, and the U.S. was the world leader in solar power, wind energy and other green tech areas, with hundreds of start-ups and thousands of high-paying jobs. But then Reagan and the go-go, booming, me-generation 80s hit like a bad hangover.

Now, with even more complex energy problems and the growing threat of global warming, clean tech is starting to get another look, on a broad scale. "We're going back to the same principles we should have learned before, and there are business opportunities again," says Jobson.

Wind Jobs, Ecotourism and the Economy:

In Green Inc., Kate Galbraith writes about energy, the economy and the bottom line when it comes to wind power in A Gust of Green Jobs. Meanwhile, the Ecotourism Awards for 2008 were presented. Click on the link to read about the winners.

Sia

Endnotes:

(1) Lack of Curiosity May Kill Most Endangered Cat

The lynx has managed to survive for so long in Spain in part because it has always shared the Iberian Peninsula with another emblematic Spanish species — the rabbit.

The Phoenicians, the great trading empire of the Mediterranean from 1000BC, named the Iberian Peninsula "Hispania" (Land of the Rabbits) because they found so many rabbits when they arrived.

Why this matters to the Iberian lynx is that rabbits account for 90 per cent of its diet. Without rabbits, the lynx would, en masse, starve to death.

Difficult as it is to imagine...the rabbit is considered endangered in Spain...If declining rabbit numbers have placed the lynx under threat, however, it is humans who will most likely cause its final extinction. Of all lynx deaths since 2000, almost 80 per cent were caused directly by humans.

Related Articles:

The Amazing Iberian Lynx

Photo: Iberian Lynx (AP) used at The Age.

Baby Leopard Cub Rescued After Entering House In India

Sometimes we need to see orphaned baby animals in good hands, so we can feel a bit better about the world.

Enjoy the video.

Sia

Folks, these people are professionals, don't try this at home, it's dangerous to you and yours for many reasons, and in most (humane and civilized) places owning or keeping wild cats is against the law.

Photo: Leopard Cub In Jordan Zoo. I found this at a wonderful blog called Dolstoy's Contemplations. If you like nature, art and animals, check it out.