Suffolk County SPCA stands alone at "ground zero"
By Norma Bennett Woolf
In the wake of the September 11 attack, animal charities sent out urgent pleas
for donations to help search and rescue dogs and save pets from evacuated buildings.
People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals asked people to contact New York
City Mayor Rudy Guiliani and complain that rescuers were not allowed into unsafe
buildings to look for stranded pets.
The American Society for Prevention of Cruelty to Animals parked its mobile
medical van at Pier 40 near Battery Park City – outside the bombing site
– to provide services for trapped or injured pets left behind in damaged
and vacated residential buildings.
The American Humane Association brought its Animal Planet Rescue mobile disaster
unit to the Staten Island Landfill staging center for search and rescue teams
to provide support for dogs and handlers.
However, only one group set up shop at ground zero at the request of federal,
state, and city officials in charge of the recovery effort. The Suffolk County
(Long Island) SPCA moved its MASH unit – a field-equipped mobile animal
surgical hospital – into the disaster perimeter at 6 p.m. on September
11 and spent the next seven weeks treating search and rescue dogs in the inner
circle of destruction and aiding in the rescue of pets in nearby residential
areas.
The SCSPCA is an all-volunteer organization – a “stealth operation”
in the words of Chief of Detectives Gerald Lauber. The volunteers “have
limited time and energy,” Lauber said, and “prefer to spend our time
doing the job. We don’t spend a lot of time tooting our own horn.”
But toot they could. The SCSPCA MASH unit is one of three in the country. In
partnership with the Veterinary Medical Assistance Team, the Long Island Veterinary
Association, and other organizations and agencies, SCSPCA provided medical services
for more than 600 New York City police dogs and mobilized teams of search and
rescue dogs at its command post at the Twin Towers attack site. On-site veterinarians
bandaged cut paws, washed dust from eyes, treated exhaustion, and diagnosed
and stabilized more serious injuries for treatment at veterinary hospitals.
Through it all, dozens of SCSPCA volunteers staffed the MASH unit next to the
police command post at the bombing site and supported operations at the auxiliary
Staten Island staging area.
Formed in 1986, the Suffolk County SPCA is not connected with the ASPCA in
New York City, a distinction that few people realized in the rush to donate
to the support of SAR dogs and handlers. Although the American Kennel Club,
the Pet Industry Joint Advisory Council, PetCo, and other companies and organizations
coordinated efforts with and donated equipment, supplies, and dollars to the
SCSPCA, the general public knew little about its efforts because it lacks a
public relations office.
“Other humane groups claimed to provide services at ground zero, but the
fact is that the Suffolk County SPCA was the only group providing veterinary
services at ground zero,” said an editorial in Suffolk Life Newspapers
on October 24. “The Suffolk County SPCA has lost hundreds of thousands
of dollars in financial support because many people believe they are a division
of the ASPCA. The gifts people send to the ASPCA in support of the rescue dogs
never reach the agency that was there to support the rescue dogs.”
The SCSPCA not only declines to toot its own horn, it refuses to rest on its
laurels. In spite of the financial hardship and emotional and physical strain
involved in around-the-clock service for weeks in southern Manhattan, the volunteers
at the SCSPCA rolled out again when an American Airlines passenger flight crashed
into a beachfront neighborhood in the Borough of Queens. Once again, the primary
mission of the MASH unit was to provide treatment for police search dogs, but
volunteers also rescued pets from houses damaged or burned in the crash.
For more information about the Suffolk County SPCA, visit the website at www.Suffolkspca.org.
|
