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| The HSUS/Laura Bevan |
HSUS animal rescue team members
unload dogs at the Tampa Bay SPCA
after the journey from New Orleans. |
HSUS Louisiana State Director Julia Breaux spends a lot of her time at the state Capitol, lobbying for stronger laws to protect animals. But after spending a week at New Orleans’ St. Bernard Parish shelter in March, she says she has a new appreciation for what it takes to run an animal shelter properly.
Breaux was among a team of people who spent days hosing down floors, hand-scrubbing cages, washing animals, and working alongside veterinarians to evaluate animals.
St. Bernard Parish was one of the areas hardest hit when Hurricane Katrina pummeled New Orleans in 2005. The shelter initially made strides toward recovery, but conditions had deteriorated to the point that a team convened in March to clean and secure the facility and move many of the animals out.
The Louisiana Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals led the team, which included the American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, The Humane Society of the United States, Friends of St. Bernard Shelter, and St. Bernard Parish government.
As the team scrubbed and organized the shelter, just outside of New Orleans, HSUS staff in Washington, D.C., and across the southeast and southwest began a coordinated rescue effort to relocate animals from the overcrowded St. Bernard facility.
Many of the dogs in the shelter were abandoned by the thousands of construction workers rebuilding the Gulf Coast. Dozens of abandoned cats roamed a nearby levee.
With the city still rebuilding, few residents have been willing to adopt animals.
“That community is so devastated that hardly anyone goes to the shelter,” said Breaux. “Some of these animals had been in there for months and months.”
“There were 85 to 90 dogs in the shelter, which was only meant to house 40 dogs maximum,” Breaux said. “Many of them were housed outside on chains with no shelter and no way to get out of the elements.”
In Florida, HSUS Regional Director Laura Bevan got on the phone with two shelters that had taken homeless animals during previous rescues: the Tampa Bay SPCA and the Humane Society of Broward County in Ft. Lauderdale.
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| Jason Melancon |
Louisiana State Director Julia Breaux and
River, the Lab she adopted from
St. Bernard Parish Shelter. |
“There are only a few shelters in Florida that aren’t already overwhelmed with animals from their communities,” said Bevan. “These two shelters have a lot of opportunities for adoption.”
On March 28, The HSUS’s animal rescue team arrived in Louisiana to load up 44 dogs and eight cats in a 75-foot animal transport vehicle and take them to Florida.
HSUS staff then drove the dogs and cats 10-plus hours to the Tampa Bay SPCA. They unloaded them all, then fed, watered, and exercised them. The next morning, they loaded 34 of the dogs and brought them farther south, to the Humane Society of Broward County in Ft. Lauderdale.
Veterinarians and behaviorists will prepare the animals for adoption in Florida.
The HSUS continues negotiations with St. Bernard Parish to help build a new shelter, and the former animal residents of St. Bernard Parish shelter will be adopted into new homes.
One lucky dog, River, has a new home with Louisiana State Director Breaux. River, a chocolate Lab, now lives with a Basset hound, Lucy, and a cat, Mr. Meowington, at Breaux’s home in New Orleans.
