Final signature count: 12,139

12,139 signatures toward our 30,000 goal

When natural disasters strike, animal shelters can find themselves overwhelmed with pets, while dealing with reduced or damaged facilities. There are federal resources that support the rescue and care of household pets, but many other animals are being left behind to face a horrific death.

The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) has several Individual Assistance programs designed to support disaster survivors and household pets¹, under the PETS Act² passed in 2006 shortly after Hurricane Katrina.

This law requires that states “account for the needs of individuals with household pets and service animals before, during, and following a major disaster or emergency.” Since then, more than 30 states have amended their disaster relief plans to account for the needs of companion animals and service animals.

However, the PETS Act only provides for certain companion animals — namely service animals and those that FEMA calls “household pets.” This includes dogs, cats, birds, rabbits, rodents, and turtles, but excludes reptiles other than turtles, fish, amphibians, farmed animals, horses, and others³.

There are no laws protecting farmed animals in emergencies or natural disasters⁴.

At least 3.4 million chickens and turkeys and more than 5,500 pigs died during Hurricane Florence in 2018⁵, even higher than those animal deaths reported when Hurricane Matthew decimated the same area a few years earlier⁶.

More than 9 million pigs were at risk, but no laws required farmers to have a contingency plan in place to even consider the welfare of those pigs, let alone requiring them to move those animals to safety⁷.

These animals drowned in the floodwaters or starved when food and water rations ran out or automated systems failed. An unknown number of animals suffered from injury and diseases following the storms and may have died later or been killed in order to be included in insurance claims. Owners left the barns locked so that the animals would drown so they could collect on the insurance⁸.

The contamination from multiple breached hog waste lagoons was still being cleaned up years later, by which time the waste had killed an unknown number of fish and other wildlife⁹.

Having thousands of animals on one farm makes it impossible to design reasonable evacuation or mitigation plans, so farmed animals are locked in sheds—often in cages and crates—where they’re unable to flee the rising floodwaters¹⁰.

Guidance from federal government on safe evacuation plans for factory farms¹¹ would help prevent millions of senseless animal deaths when disasters strike, a pressing need as climate change is increasing the frequency of hurricanes and other natural disasters¹².

Sign the petition and call for the federal government to take action and save the lives of farm animals when disasters strike.