Natural disasters create welfare crises for both companion animals and wildlife. Prepared emergency response systems save animal lives and reduce suffering during catastrophes.
Disasters create acute welfare crises at enormous scale for both companion and wild animals. Companion animals left behind during evacuations experience fear, starvation, dehydration, and injury in disaster conditions. Wildlife displaced by fires, floods, and other events face ecological disruption, food scarcity, and physical trauma. Livestock that cannot be evacuated - the majority in most disasters - die by drowning, burning, or heat exposure in ways that involve extended suffering. The welfare response framework for disasters requires both pre-event planning (microchipping, emergency kits, large animal rescue capacity) and reactive capacity (emergency sheltering, wildlife rescue, medical care). The PETS Act improved companion animal evacuation planning but livestock and wildlife emergency response remains underdeveloped in most disaster frameworks.