Topic Collection: Veterinary Issues

Many watched in sorrow as residents affected by Hurricane Katrina refused to evacuate their flooded homes because they did not want to leave their pets behind. Since then, wildfires and droughts have ravaged hundreds of thousands of acres across the western U.S., and farmers have lost countless heads of livestock and acres of hay and feed corn. Many changes have been made in the disaster veterinary field. For example, the Pets Evacuation and Transportation Standards Act of 2006 mandates that: emergency plans take into account the needs of those with pets and service animals, more emergency shelters accept pets, and dogs who work in disaster response receive special preventive and medical treatment. Zoonotic pathogens originating in animals (e.g., avian influenza) pose a risk to wild animals, agricultural animals, food sources, pets, and people who encounter them, and are therefore being monitored by public health surveillance systems to ensure wild animals, agricultural animals, food sources, pets, and caretakers remain as healthy as possible. The resources in this Topic Collection can help veterinarians, emergency planners, those in the farming and wildlife preservation industries, and residents with pets and service animals better plan for and respond to disasters. ASPR TRACIE refreshed this Topic Collection in June 2024.

Each resource in this Topic Collection is placed into one or more of the following categories (click on the category name to be taken directly to that set of resources). Resources marked with an asterisk (*) appear in more than one category.