Natural disasters including floods, fires, and hurricanes cause enormous animal welfare harm; systematic response planning reduces preventable suffering.
Natural disasters cause mass animal mortality from drowning, burning, starvation, and dehydration. Animals cannot self-evacuate and are dependent on human rescue systems that historically excluded them. Hurricane Katrina demonstrated that people refuse to evacuate without pets, linking companion animal welfare to human emergency response. Farm animal disaster response remains inadequate with billions of animals dying preventably in major floods and fires.