Major disasters expose critical gaps in animal welfare response capacity, and integrating animals into emergency planning is both an ethical requirement and a practical necessity.
Disaster response planning has historically treated animals as an afterthought despite the profound welfare and human-safety implications of this approach. Farm animals drowned in flooded sheds, companion animals left behind by evacuating owners, and wildlife killed in mass fire events represent enormous preventable suffering. The human-animal bond also means that failure to plan for animals increases human welfare costs through evacuation refusal and post-disaster grief. Integrating animal welfare into disaster risk reduction frameworks — from flood barriers around farm buildings to companion animal evacuation transportation — is both ethically required and cost-effective.