article, bill would require pets to be included in evacuatio

I understand this, but it still bothers me that this is starting because people lost their lives by staying with pets, but what about the welfare of the pets too



Legislation would require pet to be included in evacuations
More would leave if pets allowed, lawmakers say

Thursday, September 22, 2005; Posted: 2:36 p.m. EDT (18:36 GMT)

WASHINGTON (AP) -- Federal disaster grants to state and local governments should be conditioned on how they accommodate pets in their evacuation plans, say lawmakers disturbed that some Hurricane Katrina victims refused to leave home because they couldn't take their animals with them.

"I cannot help but wonder how many more people could have been saved had they been able to take their pets," Rep. Tom Lantos, D-California, said Thursday.

Lantos and Reps. Christopher Shays, R-Connecticut, and Barney Frank, D-Massaschusetts, are sponsoring a bill that would require that state and local disaster preparedness plans required for Federal Emergency Management Agency funding include provisions for household pets and service animals.

More than 6,000 pets have been saved in Mississippi and Louisiana, said Michael Markarian, executive vice president of the Humane Society of the United States, but tens of thousands more could still be in New Orleans alone. Texas, he said, has been better at allowing people to take their pets with them ahead of Hurricane Rita but a formal policy is still needed.

"We cannot rely on individual acts of compassion," Markarian said.

Holly Hazard, executive director of the Doris Day Animal League, said there are 4,000 outstanding requests to rescue pets more than three weeks after Katrina hit.

While the legislation may draw attention to the issue, it doesn't "have any real meat in it," said Sara Spaulding, a spokeswoman for the American Humane Association. She said uniform protocols on rescuing and sheltering animals, for example, should be formulated at the federal level with consultation from animal welfare groups.

Copyright 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved.This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.

 

My officemate can't understand why anyone would refuse to leave because of their pets. She said, like it was something shocking, "they are choosing to die!!"

Uh huh. Some people would rather die trying to save their pets than live with knowing they left them behind. It's a choice. She countered by saying "their priorities are screwed up" but I don't agree. It's a decision that people need to make for themselves.

If some of these people dying gets the law changed, then what is the difference between this and all the other causes throughout the ages that people have died for in order to get noticed? Perhaps that wasn't the intent of the New Orleans people, but the result is the same.

If I didn't have kids, I would NEVER leave the pets. If I had to choose between the human kids and the pets, I would have to choose humans....but you can be DARN SURE that I would do everything in my means to bring the pets with us. Luckily, we aren't poor and we have our own transportation, which helps.

My officemate said, "Leave food and water and hope for the best." Sorry. I'm not made that way.

I guess I don't see why humans should always be considered as "more valuable" than animals. Heck, I'm even for losing human jobs to stop logging and other things harmful to the environment. Humans will adapt. The animals (and trees) have no choice. Humans have taken away most of the natural habitats for animals and they are forced to live in a world that is not suited to them - like dogs in a city! The least we can do is try to care for them and protect them, since we ruined their world.

*steps down off the soapbox*

 

"I guess I don't see why humans should always be considered as "more valuable" than animals."

I feel the same way, like last night, this darn coyote was not 20 feet from my bedroom window going nuts howling for over an hour at 3 am, I come to work and tell the guys and they are like shoot it, or better yet, bait it with rat poision

but I chose to live out in the country, and that means living with these type of things, not going around killing them, and I just have to be more careful with the dogs