SPCA to the rescue of equine flood victims
SPCAstaff including animal welfare inspector Renee Hickey and volunteers from CHBhelped nine horses escape the recent Napier floods. The helpers had towademore than a kilometre through floodwaters to evacuate the horses from a property on the city outskirts south of Napier.
SPCAstaff and the horses' owners, whodid not want to be identified, got the animals to safety as the water levels rose on the Tuesday morning.
Renee Hickey said insomeareas the water was thigh-deep.
"Getting to the horseswas the most urgent job - andweknewwewere forecast to have morerain," she said.
Renee said because the water was not subsiding quickly enough, their main prioritywas to get the horses to drier ground.
"During the night, whenthe water was at its highest, the horses were belly-deep in water out there, with nowhere to go," she said.
Seven of the horses were transported to a safe property in Hastings.
"The two most elderly horses, who were unable to travel, were taken to higher ground," Renee said.
She said the owners have "lost their house and everything in the flood".
"They couldn't get any access to their horse floats or anything. They needed help getting those horses out of there as soon as possible andwe had volunteers fromCHBbring transport for the animals."
All the horses were uninjured but the stresswas visible, according to the SPCA.
"They had to put a lot of trust in us to get them out of there. Someof them were younger horses as well - they did amazingly well for a very stressful situation," Renee said.
AnAnimal EvacNewZealand
spokesman said they were in touch with the Ministry for Primary Industries, which was offering the assistance of trained animal disaster responders, whoare also trained in flood safety.
"No requests for animal assistance were received by authorities," he said.
Animal Evac have inflatable rescue sleds in Wellington on standby, ready to be deployed if requested.