Shelter animals transported out from the path of Hurricane Ida

America has a wonderful system of transporting shelter animals away from disaster zones so that those shelters are freed up for animals caught up in the disaster and the resident animals are moved out of harm's way. This works so successfully because of the wonderful volunteers who carry out the work with passion and commitment and because there are efficient air services which carry out this work. 

Shelter animals transported away from the path of Hurricane Ida. Photo: People.com.

America is a large country and therefore a lot of the time transporting shelter animals out of the path of a hurricane means putting them on an aircraft and flying them hundreds of miles.

In this instance, Hurricane Ida was classified in Louisiana as a Category 4 storm on Sunday afternoon. Before it hit landfall animal shelters and rescues has made preparations by transporting their animals to areas outside of the storm's path.

One shelter which stepped into the fray and did their bit is Helen Woodward Animal Shelter based in California. They took in 40 cats and 25 dogs from a transport flight planned by the well-known charity Greater Good Charities, in less than 24 hours.

Their website tells me that they have three arms to their charitable work: empowering people, safeguarding animals and preserving nature. As for safeguarding animals they say that they transport at risk pets to safety among other services.

The charity contacted Helen Woodward Animal Center asking for help. The adoption services director of Helen Woodward Animal Center said that it was one of those moments when animal rescue becomes a life-saving mission. She said "without a place to put these dogs and cats, many of these orphan pets would face a tragic end. We couldn't say no."

They are now looking for temporary foster care for the 65 Louisiana cats and dogs in their care. This is the way shelters deal with spillover numbers. When they have too many cats and dogs, they can go to their volunteers who live in the area who willingly provide foster care services to rescue animals. It greatly extends the scope of a shelter. Foster carers provide essential work.

Another shelter which stepped up to the plate is Operation Kindness based in Dallas. They took the ground route and drove a transport vehicle to Louisiana, filled it with young shelter animals and took them out of the path of the storm. They took, in all, 20 dogs and 31 cats in the age range two months to 16 years from Jefferson Parish Animal Shelter.

These lucky 51 companion animals are now looking for homes in Texas. Applicants can apply through their website at operationkindness.org.

Note: This is a video from another website. Sometimes they are deleted at source which stops them working on this site. If that has happened, I apologise but I have no control over it.

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Many other organisations worked together to help protect Louisiana's shelter animals from this devastating storm. It is a good example once again of how animal rescuers can work together so effectively to save lives.

Donating to Some UK Medical Charities Can Mean That You Support Experiments on Animals

I'm sure that most people are unaware of this. Many people donate money to some of the UK's leading medical charities such as Cancer Research UK and the British Heart Foundation. Both of the charities mentioned fund experiments on animals. There are others.

The Victims of Charity website helps us understand and empowers people to challenge recent examples of charity-supported experiments on animals.

I've mentioned the British Heart Foundation. This charity has supported a catalogue of repulsive experiments including dogs and pigs being deliberately given heart attacks, pregnant sheep being surgically mutilated and partially suffocated, and rats being deprived of oxygen for two weeks.

The Cure Parkinson's Trust has co-funded an experiment in which marmoset monkeys were brain-damaged by a toxic chemical overdosed with a Parkinson's disease bug to induce debilitating side-effects. They were also given ecstasy or a derivative of it.

The Alzheimer's Society has co-funded research in which mice were genetically altered to suffer from a crude version of Alzheimer's disease and they were subjected to highly stressful behavioural tests such as being forced to swim around in a pool of water looking for an escape route.

The Cancer Research UK charity has co-funded experiments in which genetically modified mice without fur were injected with human cancer cells and forced to endure the growth of a tumour inside them for three weeks before some of them were treated. Other rodents were poisoned for around six months with an industrial chemical to induce the development of cancer.

People should be aware of of the above information. When people give to charity a lot of them would be horrified to know that they are funding cruel animal experiments.

There are many organisations that only fund non-animal human-relevant research. To find out the names of these charities and to find out about the policies of charities on vivisection you can go to the animalaid.org.uk website and I also urge you to visit the victimsofcharity.org website.

In writing this short article I have quoted sometimes verbatim from a pamphlet given to me by a representative of the victims for charity and animal aid websites. I do so in order to pass on the message. The pamphlet certainly enlightened me. I hope this helps.