Shelters scrambling to save, house animals
VENTURA COUNTY, Calif. – Dogs in the lunchroom. Cats in a hallway.
At the Camarillo Animal Shelter, which has nearly doubled its population in the aftermath of natural disaster, even the deputy director’s office is being used to temporarily house kenneled pets displaced by wildfires.
“We have never been this busy over the past 10 years as we have been over the past few days,” said marketing director Randy Friedman.
Ventura County Animal Services has fielded an “alarming” amount of calls for animal welfare this week, field operations supervisor Bryan Bray said.
“We’ve had an extreme volume of calls,” he said. “Everything from ‘ Can you check on my animals because I’ve been evacuated?’ to ‘My animals need to be evacuated’ to ‘ Where can I take my animals?’ ”
As of late Friday, Ventura County Animal Services had received more than 1,000 displaced animals, 426 of which were being kept in Camarillo, including house pets, horses, ponies, emus, chickens, quail and a pig.
The temporary shelter at the Ventura County Fairgrounds was housing
315 domestic animals, 215 equines and
47 others.
“We’re stretched, but we’re making it happen,” Friedman said.
Friedman said the community has donated “literally a ton of food” for the animals. It also has responded to the live wish list Friedman maintains on the shelter’s website.
“Within a few minutes after posting something, people have purchased it and they’ve brought it to the shelter,” Friedman said. “We needed eye drops … because our field supervisors are in the smoke. All of a sudden, somebody came in with eye drops.”
The Santa Paula Animal Rescue Center evacuated 59 dogs and 77 cats to the Santa Paula Airport on Monday and Tuesday. Nicky Gore-Jones, SPARC’s executive director, said the public has responded with “unbelievable generosity.”
“During this week, some things were more important than others,” GoreJones said. “I was looking possibly for fosters at the beginning of the week, just to get animals out quickly. Every day, things have changed.”
As of Friday, when the animals returned to the center, Gore-Jones’ priority has shifted to finding homes. “Now our No. 1 priority is for people to adopt our animals,” Gore-Jones said.
The Humane Society of Ventura County, which has taken in “hundreds of animals” this week at its shelter in Ojai, has made a public plea for monetary donations.
“The need is monumental and ongoing,” director of community outreach Greg Cooper said in a statement.
The Humane Society has set up a donate link at http://hsvc.org/thomasfire.
With the fires continuing, Bray’s advice for animal lovers is to have a plan.
“We want animal owners to be prepared,” Bray said. “Even though you may not be under a voluntary or mandatory evacuation, situations change rapidly. So we want you to be able to get out quickly with your animals and be able to house them safely.”