Amid the chaos, places of sanctuary emerged — for people and their pets
Janine Couture remembers the first Fort McMurray evacuees that arrived at her bird shelter. It was a few days after the northern evacuation had begun, and they came with an African grey parrot.
“Their truck, it was covered in ash and soot. Their windshield wipers were melted to the windshield, and the bird smelled like a campfire,” recalled Couture, who, along with her husband, Ian Sprague, runs Meika’s Safehouse in Sherwood Park.
The African grey was among 127 birds from Fort McMurray sheltered by Couture and Sprague after the birds’ owners fled the fire, and there was no place for the birds to stay.
In total, Meika’s Safehouse — actually the main floor of the home of Sprague and Couture, who live in the basement — sheltered about 200 birds in May, including the birds they regularly babysit, rescue and provide for adoption.
Today, only two of the Fort McMurray birds are still at Meika’s Safehouse — both cockatiels that arrived separately, and then “fell in love,” as Couture said. Now the birds are devoted to each other and Couture can’t imagine finding a home for one without the other.
Meika’s Safehouse is just one of the animal care centres in Edmonton that went into overdrive the first week of May 2016 when the move began to evacuate 90,000 Fort McMurray residents and their pets. Some pets escaped with their families. But many were left behind, and were rescued by workers from the Fort McMurray SPCA, who sent them south.
“The first group came on a hog trailer, dogs and cats in crates ... Some 400 animals in the first shipment,” recalled Roland Lines, communications manager for the Alberta SPCA (ASPCA).
The ASPCA coordinated the animal support component of the disaster relief, setting up a care centre for pets in an empty bigbox store in the Nexus Business Park, near 142 Street and 118 Avenue. There, pets were received, assessed and cared for, and then collected by owners or sent to other shelters including Meika’s Safehouse and the Edmonton Humane Society (EHS).
Lines says the ASPCA took in about 1,200 animals at Nexus, including 548 cats, 81 dogs, 66 rabbits, 159 reptiles and six crabs. Owners claimed 1,084 pets, and surrendered 36. Twenty-eight pets (mostly fish and reptiles) died. Forty-four pets were unclaimed at the time the Nexus shelter closed on June 30, 2016, and were sent to other shelters for care.
In the end, 97 per cent of the sheltered animals made their way back to owners.
For its part, the EHS, which sits on the committee responsible for Edmonton’s municipal disaster relief plan, sent some 50 volunteers each day to the Nexus centre to help care for the animals. The EHS itself housed 250 exotic pets from Fort McMurray, including bearded dragons, frogs, butterflies, snakes and tarantulas.
“It was the most exotics I’ve ever seen in the shelter,” said Miranda Jordan-Smith, EHS chief executive. “One, a monitor lizard, was so huge, about nine pounds, that we had to create a special cage for him.”
Some $200,000 in donations came to EHS at the time of the fire. About $50,000 was put toward the cost of keeping the pets during the crisis at the local shelter, located at 13620 163 St. The surplus, $150,000, was given in the form of a cheque to the Fort McMurray SPCA in November 2016.
Another key role by the EHS during the evacuation was to supply volunteers to different shelters. They walked and fed pets, cleaned kennels and brought pets forward to be reunited with owners. EHS also gave pet supplies to anyone who identified themselves as being from Fort McMurray and in need of support.
The Alberta SPCA received $370,000 in donations connected to the Fort McMurray fire, including the cost of two-months rent at the Nexus centre — $74,000 — donated back to the ASPCA by the building’s owner. The ASPCA distributed $80,000 worth of donations to eight of their partners in the rescue effort, including Meika’s Safehouse and the EHS.
The EHS, along with a handful of other Alberta animal welfare agencies including the Alberta SPCA, received a group award in April from the Canadian Federation of Humane Societies for their exemplary work after the fire. One of the agencies was Meika’s Safehouse.