Disasters including floods, fires, and pandemics create acute animal welfare crises. Emergency preparedness and response planning for animals is a growing welfare priority.
Animals in disaster situations face acute welfare harms from burns, drowning, starvation, dehydration, and injury — often without access to veterinary care. Farmed animals in facilities that flood or burn face mass mortality events with profound individual suffering. The psychological impact of separation from companion animals during human evacuation creates welfare harm for both animals and people. Wildlife affected by disasters may recover naturally if habitat remains but can require intensive triage intervention. Climate change is creating a growing pipeline of emergency events requiring animal welfare response capacity that currently does not exist at the needed scale.