Beam Me to Planet Gore !
Posted on 07/23/2008 7:48:23 PM PDT by nickcarraway
Australia's state and federal governments must invest in training specialist emergency rescue crews to avert severe livestock and wildlife losses caused by climate change, a leading animal welfare campaigner says. The head of disaster rescue operations for the Boston-based International Fund for Animal Welfare, Dick Green, has told a national wildlife conference in Canberra, ''Your big three natural disasters here in Australia are bushfires, floods and wind storms and, as the world's climate changes, you're going to get more of them. You need to plan for that and be better prepared.''
He said the number of natural disasters across the world needing skilled rapid-response rescue teams had increased from fewer than 100 in 1975 ''to more than 400 in 2005''.
''Many of these recent disasters, like floods, fires and hurricanes, are affecting farming communities, where major loss of livestock can be prevented if you have skilled animal rescue teams on the ground.''
Dr Green, a former sports science professor with a Washington university, has led some of the world's biggest animal rescue operations.
He flew to China after the recent earthquake to organise rabies vaccinations for village dogs, and organised veterinary teams to treat diseases and injuries during clean-up operations following the 2004 tsunami in South-East Asia.
His biggest challenge was directing rescue operations in New Orleans during the floods caused by Hurricane Katrina.
''We got horses and mules out, we rescued thousands of cats and dogs, and helped emergency crews rescue people as well. We could go out and do all that because we had the right equipment and the right training.''
It's not just an exercise in compassion. Dr Green points out that, as well as reducing animal deaths and suffering, rescues save governments millions of dollars by reducing health risks and improving safety in disaster-affected areas. But, to be effective, response teams must be trained ''beyond just good intentions.
''Otherwise you've got people going in all directions, fighting over who does what, and the result is counter-productive.''
After working as a volunteer firefighter, he spent a year developing a university course to equip people with professional skills to conduct large-scale animal rescues, and he has written a textbook on rescuing them from floods.
''These disasters are going to be more frequent and, particularly with farm animals, you've got to look at the bigger impacts of livestock loss. Globally, we've lost around three million pigs already this year as a result of natural disasters. The Iowa floods cost $US3billion in crop losses,so when you add all this up it's not looking good for the global food situation.''
Training is critical but so is banishing bitter faction fighting among animal welfare bodies.
''There are too many turf wars, too many folks trying to get their flag a little higher up the pole than the others. If people can check their egos in at the door and work together, we can go a long way further."
More kool aid please mate.
Is he the Aussie version of Algore?
There's no Science like Sports Science
Like no Science I know.
“There are too many turf wars, too many folks trying to get their flag a little higher up the pole than the others. If people can check their egos in at the door and work together, we can go a long way further.”
Conveniently over 30 of the world’s skirmishes involve muslims on one or both sides of the conflict.
If we take out this War on Terror (really war on Islamic tyranny) thing, we can move on to other concerns. If we don’t, there may not be anything left to protect from natural disaster.
His biggest challenge was directing rescue operations in New Orleans during the floods caused by Hurricane Katrina. “We got horses and mules out, we rescued thousands of cats and dogs, and helped emergency crews rescue people as well. We could go out and do all that because we had the right equipment and the right training.”
oh yeah, cats and dogs and some people...
The biggest problems in New Orleans were the mayor and the governor and the crook who used human resources to check his cash in his freezer.
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