Natural disasters, fires, and emergencies cause immense animal suffering, yet emergency planning frequently overlooks animals despite their importance to human and community welfare.
Disasters expose the inadequacy of animal welfare provision in emergency planning. Wild animals perish in huge numbers in fires and floods without any capacity for organised rescue. Farm animals are often abandoned or drowned as evacuation priorities focus on humans. Companion animals left behind in evacuations suffer from abandonment, injury, and starvation. Progress is being made in integrating animals into disaster planning - pet-friendly evacuation routes, emergency farm animal registers, and trained animal disaster response teams all improve outcomes.