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Katrina pet custody case heads for a trial
By Gina Spadafori
April 22, 2007
Catching up on all the items of interest we’ve been neglecting because of the pet-food mess …
In the weeks following Hurricane Katrina, many pet were rescued, and a lot of them were re-homed after they couldn’t be reunited with their original owners. Some of those original owners don’t think they were given the opportunity to get their pets back. In Florida, a trial has now been set in one such case, according to the St. Petersburg Times:
After more than a year of legal maneuvering, a Pinellas County judge Tuesday set the week of July 9 to start a closely watched jury trial over the ownership of two dogs brought to the Tampa Bay area after Hurricane Katrina.
The central question for the jury will not be who will better care for the dogs or whom the dogs prefer, but whether the owners abandoned their dogs in a natural disaster.
The owners, Steven and Dorreen Couture of St. Bernard Parish, La., who are bringing the suit, say they didn’t. The adopted owners say they did.
Here’s the rest of the article. And here’s a follow-up from The Sacramento Bee (need a log-in?) about the closing of Noah’s Wish, a once-prominent animal disaster relief group that received millions in donations following Katrina.
If there was anything good to come out of Hurricane Katrina, it’s the realization that the needs of animals must be part of any disaster planning. That’s not only for the animals, but also because many people will risk their own lives rather than abandon their pets. Making animals part of disaster planning is important to many people.
I look at this current pet-food mess and find myself hoping that, as with Katrina, the scope of the problem and the massive response to it will spark much-needed reform in the public health system and in consumer rights in regard to the food we feed our pets.
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As a resident of the MS Gulf Coast it makes me extremely sad that the Couture’s have been deprived of their dogs for two years. And that people are blaming them for leaving their pets behind, and not evacuating sooner.
That season we had a lot of hurricanes, most of them turned out to be nothing, we had been ordered to evacuate numerous times for a false alarm. No one has any reason to believe Katrina would be different. Many, Many people choose to stay, believing that they and their pets would be safe.
We evacuated to my parents house with our cats. Ironically Whiskers survived Katrina only to be murdered by eating Menu Foods poisoned Special Kitty pouch cat food. But those who didn’t have relatives to stay with were confronted with hotels/motels that wouldn’t allow pets, shelters that wouldn’t allow pets and often forcibly separated from their pets by uncaring shelter workers, police/national guard.
When the family member left the pets at the shelter because they did not have an adequate place to keep them, the were assured they would be able to re-claim them once their living conditions improved. These pets should have never been adopted out. The Coulters were trying to do what was best for their pets by taking them to the shelter. Anyone who wasn’t down here right after the hurricane can not imagine the horrific conditions some people were forced to live in.
Comment by Alasandra — April 23, 2007 @ 5:35 am
I had been meaning to post here as well to thank you Gina for keeping this subject in our minds even during a newer catastrophe. These ongoing court cases remind us that many of the same online tools and tremendous efforts by private citizens were first employed during the Katrina diaspora - thinking in particular of the huge Petfinder database of lost and found pets and the dogged determination of the Stealth volunteers.
And Alasandra my heart goes out to you to lose your Whiskers to pet food after making it through Katrina with her. I have often thought of the Katrina surviving pets during this food debacle, and those who are still dependent on feeding stations - what a horror to make it through one tragedy only to succumb to another.
I have been doubly revolted by the judgemental comments (not here) by those who could not imagine the choices people were forced to make in those dark days. Just know that there are many of us who DO understand - we just don’t tend to be as vocal.
Comment by Empress 60 — April 23, 2007 @ 3:26 pm