Disaster Relief
Welcome to the Disaster Relief section of SmiteMe!.net. Here you can find action alerts, news and updates, volunteer and donation information, and additional resources to help the non-human victims of natural and man-made disasters. Examples include the 2007 California wildfires, the 2007 earthquake in Peru, various “pet” food recalls, the “war on terra”, and of course Hurricanes Katrina and Rita.
Listed below are the most recent email alerts and campaigns. This page currently encompasses the time period from June through December of 2008. To view archived alerts, please click on the link for the desired time period (e.g., January through June 2007), either from the list below, or the sidebar to the right (under “Pages”).
The links below are arranged in reverse chronological order, with the newest information at the top of the list. Most of the individual action alerts are reprinted here; however, some of the links will take you to external sites. You can use the links to “jump to” an action alert, or browse through the most recent emails.
If you find a broken link; would like to suggest a resource; or have an email or action alert that you’d like reprinted here, please email me at smitemedotnet [at] gmail.com.
These resources were previously available on my old website, at www.kellygarbato.com/katrina, but have since been removed. So update yer bookmarks, is what I’m sayin’!
NOTE: If you’re interested in animal advocacy issues, please visit my other blog, www.easyVegan.info. In additional to disaster relief, we cover a range of animal welfare/rights and environmental topics, with a focus on actionable items. All of the emails below are also crossposted on easyVegan.info (under “Natural Disasters“), though the easyVegan.info archive only stretches back to June 2006.
DOUBLY IMPORTANT NOTE: While I do link to alerts from national animal welfare organizations – most notably, the Humane Society of the United States (HSUS) – I encourage you, when making a donation, to direct your resources to smaller, local/grassroots animal rescue, welfare and rights groups.
In the wake of Hurricane Katrina, the HSUS received millions of dollars of monetary donations, far surpassing the fundraising efforts of local groups such as the Humane Society of Louisiana (HSLA). It’s important to note that the national HSUS is not affiliated with local humane societies. Thus, donations made to the HSUS, ostensibly to help animals impacted by Hurricane Katrina (thus totaling approximately $20 million) were not passed on to local rescue efforts. Indeed, much of the money remains unspent, three years after Hurricane Katrina hit. Some of the funds, rather than going to care for animals, were spent on equipment with which to “euthanize” (read: murder) strays!
Writes no-kill advocate Nathan J. Winograd,
Still sitting on over $20 million dollars of unspent funds from Hurricane Katrina, using money earmarked to save the lives of animals to build rooms to kill them, HSUS then fundraises off of the success of others; and in doing so, diverts funds meant for the true heroes of Hurricane Gustav to its untold millions piling up in HSUS bank accounts.
It’s those “true heroes” – folks like Kinship Circle, Muttshack, Noah’s Wish, Animal Acres, Best Friends, Farm Sanctuary, HSLA, et. al., who deserve your support. Unlike the HSUS, who offers up donated bounties to help the FBI catch animal rights “terrorists.”
Jump to…
03/30/11 – easyVegan-dot-info: BP Oil Spill: Disaster Relief, Animal Rescue & Long-Term Actions
03/28/11 – LCA: Support LCA’s Efforts to Help Animals in Japan!
03/19/11 – PETA: Ask U.S. Department of State to Allow Companion-Animal Evacuations From Japan
03/14/11 – easyVegan-dot-info: 2011 Brazil Mudslides: Animal Rescue & Vegan Relief Resources
03/10/11 – IDA: Brazil Disaster Relief Update
02/18/11 – Kinship Circle: What happened to me?
02/15/11 – IDA: Help Animal Victims Of Floods And Mudslides In Brazil
—– Original Message —–
From: Last Chance for Animals
Date: Mon, Mar 28, 2011 at 7:47 PM
Subject: Support LCA’s Efforts to Help Animals in Japan!
Support LCA’s Efforts to Help Animals in Japan!
Since the terrible earthquake and tsunami in Japan on March 11th, thousands of people have been forced to evacuate their homes and move to a safer area. Many people have not been able to take their companion animals with them, and these pets are left behind to fend for themselves, with limited supplies of food and water.
Japan destruction: Devastation in Niigati-shi area
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Last Chance for Animals (LCA) sent a Special Investigations Team (SIT) to Japan to assist with animal rescue. The SIT is working with Japan Earthquake Animal Rescue and Support (JEARS), a coalition of no-kill shelter groups and volunteers, working to save, support and reunite lost and abandoned animals in the wake of the disaster, and professional animal rescue team, The Kinship Circle.
The team first went to Hikone in central Japan to work with David Wybenga of Japan Cat Network, a non-profit organization dedicated to Japan’s stray and abandoned cat population. David has been working for over ten years to not only help the cats of Japan find safe and loving homes long before this disaster began, but also to inform and educate people that stray cats are not in fact vermin as they are often viewed. David and the team were able to rescue several stray and abandoned cats over the days they worked together.
Japan Rescue: LCA SIT member with rescued cat in Hikone
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The team then moved north to the JEARS base camp outside of Niigati for the next phase of the operation. Here they set up feeding stations and live traps to lure the frightened animals out of hiding so they could be transported to safer places and shelters that had been prepared especially for them.
The team will next be heading south of Fukushima nuclear plant to investigate reports of abandoned dogs, cats and cows. They will be spending the night in Iwate – near the area where ‘The Cove’ was filmed – and will also be investigating a feral cat refuge off the coast of Sendai.
Follow the daily blog here of one of LCA’s Special Investigators in Japan.
Map of SIT rescues so far: Map of where LCA’s SIT has helped so far in Japan
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Please donate to LCA so we can continue to keep our Special Investigative Team in the field doing what we do best; Helping Animals!
For the animals,
Campaigns Department
Last Chance for Animals
310-271-6096 x27
Last Chance for Animals | 8033 Sunset Blvd. #835 | Los Angeles | CA | 90046
—– Original Message —–
From: In Defense of Animals
Date: March 10, 2011
Subject: Brazil Disaster Relief Update
Brazil Disaster Relief – March 10, 2011 Update
Six weeks have passed since the cataclysmic flooding and mudslides in Brazil. In the warehouse-like emergency shelter in Teresopolis, in Rio de Janeiro, what is particularly striking is that the vast majority of animals – among hundreds – were companion animals, not strays as was the case after Chile’s earthquake a year ago. Formerly loved and cared for, those in the shelter are now haunted by loss, living alone in a world they used to share with human families. Thanks to your donations, IDA has been able to contribute to the team of responders trying their best to care for these animals.
IDA has partnered with another animal protection organization, Kinship Circle, in response to this disaster. Amid continuing rains and mudslides, with an ever-growing fear that more flooding is imminent, IDA-Kinship Circle volunteers ease some of the heartbreak, terror, and confusion. Left outside the shelter was a rottweiler-pit bull mix, with her shiny coat and sparkling white teeth, whose spirit has deteriorated quickly. An elderly man, filled with despair, left a black chow mix at the shelter front gate and walked away, while the bewildered dog, straining on his leash, was desperate to join him.
There are the “drive-by drop-offs” left roped outside or in milk crates. There are the guardians who have lost everything and carry their beloved animals into the shelter because they can no longer care for them. IDA-Kinship rescuers are still bringing to the shelter dogs and cats from homes that were ripped apart. A pregnant black lab went into labor and was rushed to a separate warehouse reserved for medical procedures. On the same day, a dog died in the same building where the puppies were born.
Sadness permeates the Teresopolis shelter, but the ravages of such a catastrophe have stirred great heroism and extraordinary compassion. Adoptions abound. A Franciscan nun and monk order will take 15 dogs as soon as the roads reopen from flash flooding. Two Brazilian veterinarians from Sao Paulo University and responders from Canada have recently joined the volunteer team, as have Chilean veterinarians whom we assisted in Chile’s earthquake last year.
Your donations to IDA’s Animal Disaster Relief Fund allow us to act quickly wherever and whenever we can. Help us act now and in future disasters.
Please contribute as generously as you can. Without your support, our efforts in such disaster-ravaged areas as Brazil, New Orleans, Haiti, and Chile would not happen.
In Defense of Animals, located in San Rafael, Calif., is an international animal protection organization with more than 100,000 members and supporters dedicated to ending the abuse and exploitation of animals by protecting their rights and welfare. IDA’s efforts include educational events, cruelty investigations, boycotts, grassroots activism, and hands-on rescue through our sanctuaries in Mississippi, Mumbai, India, and Cameroon, Africa.
In Defense of Animals is a registered 501(c)3 non-profit organization. We welcome your feedback and appreciate your donations. Please join today! All donations to IDA are tax-deductible.
In Defense of Animals
3010 Kerner, San Rafael, CA 94901
Tel. (415) 448-0048 Fax (415) 454-1031
idainfo [at] idausa.org
—– Original Message —–
From: Kinship Circle
Date: Fri, Feb 18, 2011 at 6:33 PM
Subject: What happened to me?
Today a puppy died in the arms of a volunteer…
IDA-Kinship Circle volunteer Jan Cabral wept as she told the story. This puppy is just one of more post-disaster deaths as conditions worsen for Brazil’s animals.
HELP US BRING HOPE TO BRAZIL’S ANIMALS!
Kinship Circle-IDA teams are in Teresopolis, in Rio de Janeiro’s mountain region. We assist NGO EstimAcao with emergency veterinary care and sheltering at a warehouse with wall-to-wall animals. In this photo Kinship responder Sister Michael Marie comforts a left-behind bunny in Santa Rita, where we do search and rescue. Every human died or fled here. We find animals hurt, hungry, afraid.
GIVE TO OUR ANIMAL DISASTER FUND
Your tax-deductible gift lets us:
● Send veterinarians and supplies to clinically diagnose and treat animals.
● Heal animals so they are more adoptable.
● Rotate teams in Brazil to fulfill our promise.
● Fund a vehicle to rescue orphaned animals.
You haven’t heard from us in awhile. That’s because…
Kinship Circle and In Defense of Animals (IDA) are in Brazil working round the clock for animals whose guardians left or died in floods and landslides. Imagine: You’re at home with your dog, 15, your best friend. You hear the roar of 10 freight trains. A mountain collapses. Boulders fall like cookies off a baking pan…
Suddenly you an your dog are suffocating under rocks, mud and debris — buried side by side. It’s too late for you, but your dog survives. Rescuers pull out the sick, elderly Rottweiler (above in photo collage). Who will love him now?
WHY SAVE ANIMALS IN BRAZIL? Kinship Circle specializes in animal disaster aid. We’re not a community shelter/rescue group. Our membership is global, with disaster-trained responders in the U.S., Canada, Vietnam, Brazil, Chile. We activate for many USA disasters — Gulf Oil Crisis, Hurricanes Gustav & Ike, Iowa Floods, Hurricanes Katrina & Rita…more. We base decisions on NEED — not GEOGRAPHY. Animal conditions in Brazil are heartbreaking. We are there.
THANK YOU SUPPORTERS! We’re behind in paperwork, but your gift is working hard to sponsor 4 volunteer veterinarians and pay for a 5th Brazilian vet. Thanks for your patience. You’ll receive a receipt.
KINSHIP CIRCLE
Animal Disaster Aid
This dog has bicheira, flesh eating maggots in Portuguese. The left side of his face is gone. Rescuers thought he’d die. But he responded to treatment. Maggots are epidemic among injured animals of Brazil’s floods and avalanches. This dog gets a happy ending — a home in Rio!
The tiniest of hearts beats in the wreckage. Over one month post-disaster, EstimAcao still gets calls to rescue animals stranded by the slides and floods.
At an evacuated home, we found ducks, bunnies, dogs, chickens, and an trapped songbird. No food or water. Caged, starving, scared. One duck seemed too dehydrated to live. But a bath revived her.
TO VOLUNTEER IN DISASTERS, CLICK HERE
KINSHIP CIRCLE
DONATE | SIGN UP | ACTION ALERTS | DISASTER AID | EDUCATION
Kinship Circle is a 501c3 nonprofit animal advocacy and disaster rescue organization that specializes in action campaigns, educational literature/outreach, and animal disaster rescue/relief. All donations are tax-deductible and no good or services are received in exchange for them.
Kinship Circle | info [at] KinshipCircle.org | 7380 Kingsbury Blvd | Saint Louis, MO 63130
—– Original Message —–
From: In Defense of Animals
Date: Tue, Feb 15, 2011 at 12:21 PM
Subject: Help Animal Victims Of Floods And Mudslides In Brazil
IDA Home | Action Center Home | Donate | Sign Up! | Tell a Friend
Click here to view this message online in your web browser.
Help Victims Of Floods And Mudslides In Brazil
Your donation to IDA’s Animal Disaster Relief Fund will help us continue to respond to this and other disasters
Caption: A dog recovers at an emergency shelter in Sao Jose for animal survivors
of Brazil’s flash floods and landslides.
PHOTO: Kinship Circle-IDA team member, Jan Cabral.
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With thirty years combined disaster relief experience, In Defense of Animals (IDA) and Kinship Circle have formed a partnership to respond to Brazil’s floods and mudslides. An IDA-Kinship Circle team now in Brazil is providing search and rescue services, veterinary treatment, including spaying and neutering, and more.
Please click here to donate today!
Entire towns are devoured by floods and mudslides, the worst natural disaster in the country’s history. Thousands of rescued animals have found refuge in makeshift shelters. There is dire need for food, water, shelter, and veterinary-trained responders. Animals with broken bones, burns, and deep gashes are everywhere. There is growing concern about disease.
Nicky, a German Shepherd mix, limped into the Teresopolis shelter in Rio de Janeiro with one leg dangling, a missing toe, and an absent foot pad, wearing a collar caked in mud. Her family was swallowed up in a landslide. IDA-Kinship Circle responders Jan and Carlos Cabral of Posse Petropolis, Brazil adopted the ten-year-old, who now shadows Jan everywhere so as not to be left behind.
In an old warehouse in Teresopolis, a mountain town outside Rio de Janeiro, newly rescued animals arrive daily. There is overcrowding and shortages of medication and fluids. Temperatures rise into the nineties. The risk of Dogs tail lost to maggotsdehydration is ever-present. A dog arrives at the shelter, his tail so thick with maggots that it falls off during treatment. There are burn victims and others infested with maggots.
Not-yet-rescued cats still hide in the ruins. Puppies remain stuck in the wreckage. Horses are still waiting to be saved.
We can’t forget these animals. Please click here today to donate!
We have been asked to help set up a spay/neuter clinic and assist adoption, education, and vaccination drives. Funds are needed to support rescue, first aid, medical attention, and emergency housing for lost, sick, and wounded animals.
Your donations to IDA’s Animal Disaster Relief Fund allow us to act quickly wherever and whenever we can. Help us act now and in future disasters.
Please contribute as generously as you can. Without your support, our efforts in such disaster-ravaged areas as Brazil, Australia, New Orleans, Haiti, and Chile would not happen.
In Defense of Animals, located in San Rafael, Calif., is an international animal protection organization with more than 100,000 members and supporters dedicated to ending the abuse and exploitation of animals by protecting their rights and welfare. IDA’s efforts include educational events, cruelty investigations, boycotts, grassroots activism, and hands-on rescue through our sanctuaries in Mississippi, Mumbai, India, and Cameroon, Africa.
In Defense of Animals is a registered 501(c)3 non-profit organization. We welcome your feedback and appreciate your donations. Please join today! All donations to IDA are tax-deductible.
In Defense of Animals
3010 Kerner, San Rafael, CA 94901
Tel. (415) 448-0048 Fax (415) 454-1031
idainfo [at] idausa.org
Last updated 3/17/11
