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| The HSUS/Kathy Milani |
The HSUS's Curt Ransom helps a goat
outside of San Diego Oct. 25. |
By Rachel Querry
LAKESIDE, Calif.—Despite an improved forecast, The HSUS Disaster Services team welcomed volunteer reinforcements from Tallahassee, Seattle and Austin, Texas, Thursday.
The team, working with the San Diego County Animal Services, has been rescuing and helping shelter animals in ongoing efforts to help people and animals affected by a week of terrible firestorms in Southern California.
"Animals Need Food and Water"
The Southern California fires have raced through horse country, a repeat of 2003 fires that spread through the same area. The San Diego County Animal Services has emphasized preparedness in the intervening years, and the agency is generally pleased with the response from the public.
“I think this operation has gone amazingly well considering the scope” of this disaster, said Lt. Dan DeSousa Thursday.
The agency realized early on that they needed help to address the many needs caused by the wildfires blazing through Southern California.
“We realized that this would be beyond our resources, said DeSousa. “We immediately reached out to HSUS and the other groups we’ve worked with to ask for assistance.”
“For the most part, people heeded the warnings to evacuate with their animals,” said DeSousa.
“Now we are looking to go behind the fire lines,” he said. “Animals need food and water because mom and dad aren’t home.”
Responding to the Call
San Diego Animal Services officers teamed up The HSUS to respond to requests from evacuated residents to check on their animals—dogs, cats, horses, turtles, ducks, geese and goats.
Behind each call, the possibility for tragedy remained ever-present. In the morning, word reached the temporary command center that a home a field team had been asked to check in on had burned to the ground with no evidence of surviving animals.
Another call indicated that nine pregnant mares and other horses needed help on a property in Dulzura.
A team including HSUS staff Melissa Forsberg and Paul Bruce loaded trucks with hay, dog and cat food, water, and chicken scratch. When they rolled out of the Lakeside command center, they had five bales of hay and permission to cross barricades to reach the mother horses in need.
Veterinary Students Practice Their Trade
While responders drove the devastated countryside, three veterinary students from Western University in Pomona stayed behind in Lakeside to tend to the medical needs of the more than 350 animals housed at a temporary animal shelter. Chickens, turkeys, pigs, sheep and goats numbered among the residents.
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| The HSUS/Kathy Milani |
Vicki Webb with a horse at the Lakeside temporary shelter.
Eighty-eight horses were claimed by owners at Lakeside Oct. 25. |
“The animals are doing surprisingly well,” considering the scale of the disaster and the number of animals involved, said Tamerin Scott, a third-year veterinary student. “The pens are clean and they have plenty of water.”
On clinical rotation at a large animal clinic when the fires broke out, the students found themselves in the middle of the largest disaster in years.
Scott, along with Manprett Mundh and Erin McNeil (a former
RAVS volunteer), have treated the medical needs of the animals, including horses whose eyes had been irritated by smoke, since Monday. They have also treated a handful of horses suffering from colic and some with lacerations.
“This has been an amazing learning experience,” said Mundh.
As some people were allowed to return to their homes, the students said goodbye to four lucky horses Thursday. Until they left for home, the horses’ owner slept on the bleachers ringing the Lakeside grounds where the animals found refuge from the fires.
In all, 88 horses were claimed from the Lakeside facility Thursday.
A Model ResponseEvacuation centers at Qualcomm Stadium and Fiesta Island wound down as the firefighters gained more control of the fire and some residents headed home.
The HSUS’s California director Eric Sakach said that while animals have been injured, killed and misplaced by the hundreds and thousands, the response to the wildfires has been the best he’s seen in more than 30 years of tending to the needs of animals during disasters.
“The citizens of San Diego County have responded in tremendous fashion,” said Sakach. “The evacuation shelters have welcomed animals. All of the agencies involved in the animal rescue effort are cooperating to address the needs of the animals and to help this community recover.”
