Humane Society director heading to Gulf Coast
Cayman Islands Humane Society director Kathleen Bodden-Harris will travel to Gonzales, Louisiana next week to assist at a temporary animal shelter besieged with pets rescued after Hurricane Katrina.
Kathleen Bodden-Harris, left, shown here at a Humane Society Dog Wash earlier this year, will travel to Louisiana to help at a temporary shelter housing more than 3,000 pets rescued after Hurricane Katrina. Photo: Alan Markoff |
As of last week, more than 3,000 animals were located at the shelter.
‘I’m assigned to the shelter in Gonzales, but I don’t know what I’ll be doing,’ said Mrs. Bodden-Harris. ‘I could be cleaning cages and doing dog walks, or I could be helping in rescue efforts.’
An estimated 10,000 to 50,000 pets were made homeless by Hurricane Katrina.
After seeing what happened with pets on Grand Cayman after Ivan, Mrs. Bodden-Harris knew it would be bad in the Gulf Coast for animals.
‘I was in Tampa the day Katrina hit,’ she said. ‘I knew from experience what they were facing.
‘I cried every morning when I got up and watched what was happening on television.’
Mrs. Bodden-Harris decided to offer her services to help with the rescued pet crisis in the Gulf Coast area.
‘Things are going to get worse there as time goes on,’ she said. ‘The volunteers will get exhausted and more animals are going to show up.’
There are efforts to reunite the rescued pets with their owners. Shelter volunteers are taking photos of the pets and posting them on the Internet in hopes their owners will claim them.
There are also efforts to find foster homes for homeless pets in locations all across the country.
With the Cayman Islands Humane Society’s approval, Mrs. Bodden-Harris was able to get a round trip Cayman Airways ticket to Houston to help defray her travel costs. She’s hoping she can get another airline to sponsor her flight to Louisiana.
Mrs. Bodden-Harris said she has put in for a two-week stint, but it could be longer.
‘I’ve asked Cayman Airways to leave the return ticket open in case I’m needed for longer,’ she said.
Mrs. Bodden-Harris said she was not surprised to hear stories about people who would not leave their pets during the storm.
‘There are people who absolutely refuse to move without their pets,’ she said. ‘I’m that type of person. I wouldn’t leave without my two cats. We’re all in this together. Animals and people are intrinsically intertwined.’
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