Rescue groups respond to animals trapped in Midwest floods

Staging at the Adams County Fairgrounds in Quincy, Illinois, the three groups – the first to enter Illinois to assist in animal relief – have set up a temporary shelter, which is growing each day. Twenty fawns, rescued by local groups from atop an overflowing  levee, where they tried to escape rising floodwaters, are now being cared for at the shelter. Other residents include: two horses, one sow, three chickens, three dogs, and two kittens.

“These fawns cannot be more than four weeks old, and with their mothers assumed dead, they are completely reliant on us for their survival. We have constructed temporary sheltering for the animals and will continue to bottlefeed,” says Dick Green, Disaster Relief Manager for IFAW. While these animals will be cared for until they can be turned over to a wildlife rehabilitator for eventual reintegration into the wild, Green reminds that countless other animals will not have been so lucky.

The county Animal Warden, Jenny Benjamin, has fully welcomed the assistance as according to Benjamin, all local shelters have reached capacity. Tracy Reis, American Humane’s Manager for Animal Emergency Services, who has worked with the group since Hurricane Katrina, is the Head of Shelter Operations on-site.

Residents and volunteers continue to frantically work in sandbagging operations to contain the Mississippi River as experts forecast record-crests along the Illinois and Missouri border. The floodwaters in Quincy have yet to fall, now standing at a record 30-plus feet.

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