Thursday night round up of Katrina animal coverage

ABC, CBS and NBC all covered the Katrina animal issue last night, Thursday September 8 - see below.

PLUS...

On the KCAL website you can see a lovely story about a black labrador who had saved a man from the water, was left behind afterwards, but who the KCAL team went back to rescue. Go to http://kcal9.com/homepage and scroll down the video list to "Heroic Black Lab 'Katrina' Rescued In New Orleans." KCAL takes comments at http://kcal9.com/feedback/
If they know the story is popular, they will run more animal friendly stories.

Lew Regenstein tells me that the coverage was beautiful on the Thursday night edtion of the MSNBC show Scaroborough Country, and that John Scarborough "got so chocked up he could hardly speak." That show repeats at 2am so you can watch or tape it.
Scarborough takes comments at: joe [at] msnbc.com
Please thank him for his sensitive coverage.

Also, Rita Cosby covered the rescue of two dogs on her MSNBC show "Rita Cosby Live & Direct." Apparently she said they were the most beautiful guests that had been on her show. If you caught the segment, and liked it, please take a moment to thank her -- Rita [at] msnbc.com

The Thursday, September 9, CBS Evening News show on the issue was terrific. It is now on line at:
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2005/09/08/eveningnews/main829079.shtml

I will paste the web-site print edition, more or less a transcript, below, then the ABC World News Tonight story below that. Please thank CBS Evening News at evening [at] cbsnews.com
Again, the more positive feedback news shows get for animal stories, the more they will cover.

Here is the CBS story print version -- though it is worth watching the video on line at the link above if you can:

Katrina Leaves Pets In Peril
NEW ORLEANS, Sept. 8, 2005

They aren't counted among the dead, they aren't pointing fingers at who's to blame, but their suffering is hard to ignore.

Katrina's four-legged victims seem utterly alone, either left behind on purpose or turned away from evacuation buses.

We hear them barking from abandoned homes, we see them stranded on rooftops, and wandering the streets barely able to keep their heads above water, CBS News Correspondent Lee Cowan reports from New Orleans.

"They're living out on the streets right now, and they're very sweet lovable dogs," New Orleans resident Kate Cummins says.

The rescue efforts we've seen are nothing short of heroic. A dog named Sam had to be cut out of a roof.

"Hey Joe, happy birthday dude, I've got Sam. I got him, he's alive," a man announces proudly to his friend over the phone.

Noah would have been proud. We've seen sea-going snakes, turtles, birds, even a pot-bellied pig.

"Once you get your hands on them, you can almost feel their body relax, they're so happy to have that human contact with them," Shirley Minshew of the International Fund for Animal Welfare says.

Shirley Minshew is the Dr. Doolittle of this disaster. She has a list of some 3,000 pets she's determined to save.

Minshew adds that she is basically going door-to-door, or, better put, rooftop-to-rooftop, to rescue the animals.

You might wonder who would risk their lives in this muck to save a dog, or a cat or a pot-bellied pig. It's not just about those eyes or those wagging tails. It's because the pets may very well be the only thing in these people lives that they can actually save.

"It's very heart-wrenching, gut-wrenching to see that they come here and all they want is their pets, because it's the only thing they have left," says Margaret Del Rossi, a pet rescue volunteer.

Daniel Lorentz lost his home and his two labs.

"It would be the greatest thing to me to get my dogs back," Lorentz says.

We watched as Lorentz searched every pen in this animal shelter, and nothing.

"I guess you gotta really be a pet owner to know how much it hurts," Lorentz says.

In a community of so much loss, the power of a pet seems boundless.
More information on animal rescues is available on the Louisiana SPCA Web site.

(END OF CBS story)

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And here is the ABC story from http://abcnews.go.com/GMA/HurricaneKatrina/story?id=1107049 which was the same story that played this morning on Good Morning America:

Reuniting Pets and Owners After Katrina Rescuers Scramble to Save Pets in New Orleans, Gulf Coast States
Valerie Bennett was reunited with her beloved dogs, Oreo and Lady. (ABC News)

Sept. 8, 2005 — Calls to pet shelters from animal lovers have prompted the rescue of thousands of pets left behind in Katrina's wake. In New Orleans, teams are going house to house in search of marooned animals. But uniting this growing city of beloved pets with their owners is another matter.

Lorne and Valerie Bennett were forced to leave their four pets behind when Katrina chased them from their Slidell, La., home to an Atlanta hospital. A local doctor had promised to stay behind and care for the pets.

"We never thought we'd see them again," Lorne said.

And miraculously from their Atlanta hospital room, they did. The doctor had kept his word, spiriting their four animals to a shelter, where they appeared on TV.

Then a Texas couple, hearing of the Bennetts' plight, drove 1,200 miles to pick up the pets. "It got put in our laps and we were destined to do it," said Jeff Caldwell, who helped with the reunion.

And then this miracle story ended in a happy sea of tears, as the Bennetts were reunited with their English springer spaniel, Oreo, their dachshund, Lady, their cat, P. Kitty, and their guinea pig, Piggy Wiggy.

It's difficult to estimate how many pets got left behind in New Orleans, said Racelle Carlson, field manager for the American Humane Society. But the AHS is performing lots of rescues, which are mostly dogs, she added.

"We've been in boats, getting descriptions of the houses and the pets and just going in and getting them," Carlson said.

"We're tranquilizing the ones that are aggressive," she added. "They're just scared right now."

The AHS is bringing all pets to the Lamar-Dixon Expo Center in Gonzales, La., where there are vets to care for them.

"We're not seeing many cats, but we have gotten about five so far. They're mostly just dogs," Carlson said. "We did have a report that a man had alligators and snakes he couldn't get to."

To reach the American Humane Society, call 800-486-2631.
To reach the Lamar-Dixon Expo Center, call 888-773-6489.
You can view homeless pets on Petfinder.com

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You can send a thank you to World News Tonight at netaudr [at] abc.com. Put WORLD NEWS TONIGHT in the subject line.

And for those who missed my earlier email, you can watch the terrific NBC Nightly News story on line at http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/9174390/
Click on the picture marked, "Video: Saving animals -- NBC's Martin Savidge reports on the teams racing to rescue the four-legged victims of Katrina."

NBC Nightly News takes comments at Nightly [at] NBC.com


(DawnWatch is an animal advocacy media watch that looks at animal issues in the media and facilitates one-click responses to the relevant media outlets. You can learn more about it, and sign up for alerts at http://www.DawnWatch.com. If you forward or reprint DawnWatch alerts, please do so unedited -- leave DawnWatch in the title and include this tag line.)