by Cathy Scott
Out of the sundry pets arriving at base camp, perhaps the most challenging to care for were the tarantulas, especially the large ones. Cherie Fox, a veterinary technician from Ohio, took charge of them for a few days, and just before her stint was up, a replacement caregiver was sought. Best Friends issued a request on the Internet: “Arachnophiliac volunteer needed!! The kind volunteer who’s been taking care of the tarantulas at our St. Francis Sanctuary at Tylertown will shortly have to leave. If you are an arachnophiliac and can take her place for a while, please fill out this form and specify that you are willing to help with the tarantulas. Thanks!”
Fifteen spiders, including a variety of tarantulas, had taken up residence at the relief center. They too were left behind in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, rescued, and driven to Camp Tylertown. The two largest tarantulas were picked up from an apartment on Washington Avenue in the Garden District of New Orleans. The team noted on the admissions paperwork that each spider had two big fangs. Another batch of tarantulas arrived in the tin cans that they’d lived in at one home. Volunteer Susie Duttge helped transfer them—very carefully—from the cans to larger, aquarium-like housing. “The owner had them stuffed into tiny containers,” she said, “which showed that even tarantulas can suffer from animal abuse. A lot of them were dead in those containers. The bigger ones survived. We used bottle caps from the gallon water jugs as water bowls. They eat live crickets, and somehow those were located for them.” Caring for tarantulas, Susie said, “is not too eventful once you get them set up in their home. Water and crickets is about it.”
Meanwhile, during her turn caring for the spiders, Cherie Fox busily got up to speed on the care and feeding of tarantulas. She pulled an all-nighter when the first group of spiders arrived, making sure they all took in water. Cherie used potting soil as substrate for what she described as “their clean new homes,” which were close to a natural environment. “They’re acting very lively,” she reported after the first day.
The names of the species believed to be at base camp were a mouthful: Brachypelma, grammostola aureastriata, grammostola pulchra, aphonopelma moderatum, aphonopelma coloradanum, aphonopelma Borelli, and aphonopelma chalcodes. After a story about the tarantulas ran on the Web, many readers provided tips and even offered to take them in. They congratulated the rescuers for “saving such misunderstood critters.” One person thanked Cherie specifically for “helping the scared, innocent spiders.” Another reader commented, “Pigs, a squirrel, an emu, an iguana, and now tarantulas—oh, my!” Soon the tarantulas were transported to the able hands of an experienced tarantula keeper at a zoo in Alabama. Juliette Watt, a volunteer coordinator for Best Friends who happens to be a pilot with a four-seater plane, flew the tarantula passengers to their new habitat.
For the caregivers at the camp, even more challenging than the spiders was an emu, a large Australian ostrichlike bird. It wasn’t just basic care that was a challenge; also in question was where to put him so he would be both safe and comfortable.
The emu had been rescued on September 17 near the Murphy Oil refinery, where the storm caused more than twenty-five thousand barrels of crude oil to be released into the towns of Meraux and Chalmette just two and a half weeks earlier. The emu, whom volunteers called Big Bird, was noticed as he walked in a ditch near the railroad tracks parallel to St. Bernard Highway just past the refinery. “We couldn’t believe it,” said Dana Herman, a volunteer from Minnesota, who was with a team that included Dr. Will Magum, a veterinarian from Atlanta; Ken Ray, a volunteer and animal control officer from Alabama; and Chipa Wolfe, a volunteer from Georgia who had experience with wildlife. The team split up, with Dana, Will, and Ken in the transport vehicle—the large air-conditioned cargo van dubbed “the Big Nasty” after black dirt from the streets was tracked into it.
“We were driving on St. Bernard Highway, and the emu was walking along the fence line,” Dana said. “We could see a ship, maybe a military ship, behind him. There was a big fence that ran alongside the road, and the emu was in a ditch following the fence line. I said, ‘What the hell did we just see?’ Dr. Will said he knew all about emus and that we should pick him up. Somebody radioed Chipa, and he came in with his pickup. With their arms, they corralled this emu and walked him back to the Big Nasty.”
But it was tougher than it sounded. The emu wore them out. “The poor thing didn’t know where he was,” said Chipa, who rescues wildlife at home in Georgia. “I’d had a couple of emus that people brought to my farm, and I’ve wrestled with an emu before. They can take their toes and cut you up.” Chipa, who has a reputation for being a gentle animal handler, intended to catch Big Bird without harming himself or the emu.
On top of not having had any food for nearly three weeks, the emu was frightened. With Ken nearby, Chipa slowly approached the emu and then tried to grab him.
“The only way I know to move an emu is, once you’ve caught him, grab his neck and put your arm over his back to stabilize him,” he said, “otherwise he’ll beat you with his head and hurt himself in the process.”
That’s what Chipa started to do. “I threw my arm over his back,” he said. But what happened next took Chipa by surprise.
“All of a sudden, the emu put one foot up and kicked me right into the chain-link fence,” he said. “I bounced right back. It was like a cartoon.” Chipa was unhurt, and he and Ken began guiding the emu, who by that time had calmed down. They walked him, holding his neck, toward the van parked on the deserted road. Once there, they picked up the bird and put him inside.
Dr. Will stood with the emu in the aisle between kennels in the back of the van to make sure he didn’t harm himself in such close quarters. The kennels inside the van were half full at that point with rescued dogs and cats.
“They gave him water, and Dr. Will tried to keep him calm during the three-hour drive back to Mississippi,” Chipa said.
It was a good day for the pets stranded in St. Bernard Parish. “We caught a menagerie that day,” Chipa said. “I got three pythons. One was a rock python inside somebody’s house. Because it was dark inside the house, he looked just like a moccasin snake. I had to grab his head in the dark. I got a ball python from somebody’s boat. It was stuck in a fisherman’s net, and it was cutting into the end of the snake. I got him out.” Besides the emu and three pythons, the team rescued thirty dogs, fifteen cats, a three-foot iguana, and the first pot-bellied pig from the streets that day.
At Camp Tylertown, the emu was fed and housed in a large run near the entrance to the second gate. The next challenge was to transport the bird to a sanctuary. The Big Nasty van was used for transport only from New Orleans to base camp, so other transportation needed to be found. A zoological society had agreed to take the bird, but the workers at Camp Tylertown had to find a vehicle tall enough to fit the long-necked emu comfortably. A volunteer ended up pulling him in a horse trailer nine hundred miles to his new home at the Racine Zoo in Wisconsin. Big Bird, when he arrived, had some medical issues and was dehydrated. Today, however, the zoo reports that Big Bird—now named Perth—is doing well and is nicer than typical emus, who have a tendency to be defensive.
“He has a girlfriend and has had one for some time,” said Eric Hileman, a director at the zoo. “He gets along really well with her. He’s got a sweet disposition.”
The emu was put in a standard quarantine for thirty days, but because he still had some medical problems, he remained in quarantine until early December 2005. “He was in pretty rough shape when we first got him,” Eric said. “He wouldn’t eat, and he wouldn’t defecate initially. We assumed he was a pet and that he had been fed inappropriate foods for an emu. Initially we tried to give him the food he should have. He was not consuming his diet, so it was several days before we started giving him bread and other things he would have had as a pet. We slowly got him to eat food for emus.”
In November of that year, Perth underwent a deworming series, but in the meantime tested positive for what Eric described as “a pret
ty nasty parasite.” With time, however, the emu showed signs of improvement. By December 5, his tests were clean, and three days later he was placed in an exhibit on zoo property. The Racine Journal-Times published a story about the emu who had arrived from New Orleans. As yet, though, there’s no signage informing visitors to the zoo that Perth is a hurricane survivor. When the signs at his habitat are in need of replacing, Eric said, they’ll include Perth’s background.
Meanwhile, Perth’s good health continues. He’s nesting, and zookeepers expect his female emu companion to lay fertilized eggs in the near future. “He’s in great shape now,” Eric said. “He adjusted fairly rapidly. He’s in our Walk-about Creek. It’s one of the largest exhibits here. He’s in there with kangaroos and does very well with them.” The zoo is located on thirty-two acres on the shores of Lake Michigan. With just two hundred animals, Eric said, the zoo is able to have large habitats, such as the one Perth lives in.
When asked if it’s unusual for a zoo to take in an exotic bird that’s been a pet most of his life, he said, “We knew he was in trouble, and we knew we were in a position to take him. We had a great opportunity here to save one life. We had space that was already available. All of our zookeepers here are in it because they’re passionate and care about the animals’ well-being.”
Camp Tylertown was also beginning to resemble a zoo. Besides the pig picked up the same day as the emu in St. Bernard Parish, a rescue team took in two other pot-bellied pigs. A large black one called Raisin by volunteers was found near a school and was suffering from dog bites. He was treated and then, like Big Bird, relocated to the Racine Zoo in Wisconsin.
Volunteers doted on Raisin during his stay at Camp Tylertown. Jan Martin, a veterinary technician from Orange County, California, got to know Raisin as she made her rounds around the animal areas. “There was some hay in his run,” Jan said. “The pig would bury himself underneath the hay. I’d call the pig, and he would come over to the fence and put his hoofs up on the chain link. I’d put my hand through and pet him. He was friendly.”
Raisin was treated at the M*A*S*H Unit before moving to Wisconsin. “We kept the pig through quarantine,” Eric Hileman, director of the Racine Zoo, said. “We didn’t have accommodations for him here.” Raisin, once he recovered from his ordeal and was in good enough health to travel, was transferred to a different zoo in Wisconsin, where he now lives.
Back at base camp one evening, volunteer Vicki Schutt from Minnesota was headed to her tent not far from the Heights, where many of the larger dogs were kept. She saw Susie, a 250-pound pig, slowly making her way down one of the grassy aisles between the dog runs, taking herself for a walk. Vicki put a loop leash around Susie’s neck, but the pig, who barely had a neck, slipped out. Not knowing what else to do, Vicki hollered out, “Loose pig!” and several people at camp soon corralled Susie back to her own pen in the dog barn.
Susie and the unnamed third pig eventually went to Jo Dawn Farms, a petting zoo in Franksville, Wisconsin. A representative from Jo Dawn Farms said the pigs were doing well and had adjusted to their new home.
Angel Parker, a New Orleans resident, was missing a green iguana. It was probably one of the oddest, yet most touching, reunions to come out of the rescues because Angel had a most unusual combination of pets.
After she was notified that her animals were at Camp Tylertown, Angel drove with her children in their SUV to base camp. A couple of weeks earlier, as she and her family were about to be evacuated, she’d left her eight pets with a friend. The friend, however, was forced to evacuate and, in turn, handed Angel’s pets over to the Jefferson Parish Animal Shelter. On a routine trip back from New Orleans, Best Friends stopped at the shelter and picked up the group, along with paperwork that identified Angel as the pets’ guardian.
Angel’s brood was quite a collection. She was reunited on an October evening with her entire gang of pets, which included an iguana named Heineken, a Pit Bull called Cornbread, a Rottweiler named Mary Jane, and Miko the Maltese, not to mention four cats—Oddball, Alicia, Sassy, and Pretty Boy. Volunteers, who looked forward each day to reunions, grabbed their cameras and surrounded Angel as her pets, one by one, were brought to her. When her iguana, Heineken, was handed to her, she kissed its face, and the iguana didn’t protest. That surprised Mckenzie Garcia, who’d helped take care of Heineken. “He wouldn’t let us get near him,” Mckenzie said. The cats were given to Angel in carriers, and the dogs were walked out on leashes. Angel bent down and kissed them all as they jumped all over her. Before she left, workers gave her dog and cat food from a trailer filled with donations.
Angel loaded the food and her menagerie into her SUV, putting the pets who weren’t in carriers on her children’s laps, and then they happily drove away.
The remaining odd mix of pets not claimed by their owners, including dozens of fish, a squirrel, a hamster found in the middle of a deserted intersection, and a half dozen rabbits of different colors and types, were placed in foster care. Many of these animals were fostered by the Animal Ark rescue group in Minnesota and HOPE Safehouse in Wisconsin. Regardless of species, they, just like the cats and dogs, went into homes or were fostered.
14
Animal Mug Shots
EACH DAY FOR SEVERAL MONTHS, residents who had been evacuated out of New Orleans drove from Texas, Louisiana, Arkansas, and Alabama to Camp Tylertown, hoping to find their pets. One at a time—in groups, and sometimes with as many as six members to a family—they filed into the tiny office. Sometimes it was so cramped that there was little room to move.
They quietly thumbed through the several hundred photos and admissions paperwork sandwiched inside a growing number of three-ring binders. When they found their pets, they’d exclaim, “I think I found my dog!” or, “Here’s my kitty.” Many were overcome with emotion. If their pets had been placed in temporary foster care, arrangements were made to reunite them at a later date.
One couple, Laneka Campbell and Reggie Williams, went to the center looking for Covoo, their Yorkshire Terrier, named after the lion in the film Simba’s Pride.
They had lost their dog when Reggie, asleep with Covoo on the Causeway bridge (which runs across Lake Pontchartrain), was awakened in the middle of the night and an animal control officer took Covoo from him. Laneka had left earlier with Reggie’s father, but Reggie stayed with the dog until he was ordered to leave his home and was taken to the Causeway, a staging area where evacuees were told to wait for buses to transport them out of the flooded area. All Reggie had in his hand was a piece of paper with the name and address of a shelter. He thought he’d been given a receipt that he could match up with an ID tag on his dog, but that wasn’t the case. After he was evacuated and able to return to the area, Reggie followed instructions and went to the animal shelter, but Covoo wasn’t there. Workers suggested he try the Camp Tylertown rescue center.
Reggie and Laneka arrived at camp late one morning. They looked through the binders and found Covoo’s paperwork and photo. Although they were happy to find Covoo, the disappointment showed on their faces when they learned he’d been placed in foster care and they wouldn’t see him for another week or so, to allow time for transportation arrangements to be made. They were told that many of the animals were placed in temporary homes for their own safety, to prevent possible exposure to illnesses that might be carried in by pets still arriving from New Orleans, and also to make room for newly rescued arrivals.
The couple looked sad. Then Reggie asked if they could hold Mia, my foster Chihuahua who was in the small office with us, saying he needed a dog fix. I picked up eight-pound Mia from her bed, where she was napping under a table, and handed her to him. She’s the kind of dog who loves to be held and will put her head on a shoulder. As Reggie held the little dog against his chest and Laneka petted her, the couple stood there in silence.
A week later, Covoo was driven back to base camp. Reggie and Laneka were notified and returned to pick him up. A big deal was made over the reunion, and this
time Laneka and Reggie left base camp smiling with Covoo safely in tow.
The next day, another New Orleans man arrived at base camp looking for his dog, a Rottweiler. The man went from run to run and then looked through the binders, searching for his dog’s photo. He didn’t find him. That afternoon, however, he decided to try to get into his neighborhood. He went through an unmanned roadblock and made it into his area and then onto his rubble-strewn street. As he slowly drove through his neighborhood, an animal control officer driving a truck headed his way. He waved down the driver, who stopped. He got out of his car and showed the officer photos of his dog from his wallet, and then gave the officer his street address, which was up the road. He could hardly believe what the animal control officer said next. “That’s your dog? I picked him up a couple of days after the storm. He’s been staying with me at the shelter.” The man got back in his car and followed the officer to the facility, where he retrieved his dog. He wanted to share the good news, so he called the St. Francis Animal Sanctuary to let us know.
When people arrived at base camp looking for their pets, some wanted so badly for a dog or a cat to be theirs that they would point to one, then another, and yet another and say, “There he is,” before realizing the pets weren’t theirs. One woman walked with her husband through the Heights area at Camp Tylertown looking for their Rottweiler. “That’s him!” the woman said.
“No, honey, look at the face,” her husband told her. “That’s not his face.”
“This one is him,” she said when they reached a second run where another male Rottweiler was housed.
“It’s not him,” her husband said quietly. They weren’t able to find their dog, at least not at Camp Tylertown.
