Just days after a forest fire caused the evacuation of Fort McMurray, Alta., a truck with a horse trailer drove up to one of the road blocks guarded by the RCMP. Two men got out of the vehicle and approached the police.
Sgt. Jack Poitras, an RCMP media relations officer, overheard the conversation. The men had come to collect a horse that had been left behind. However, for safety reasons, people weren't allowed to re-enter the town without a police escort.
That morning in a briefing, Poitras learned that police officers were to assist with abandoned animals — if they could. And now he had an opportunity.
Poitras grabbed his partner, "I said to him, 'George, we have a mission,' " says Poitras. "If no one else could help those people get that horse out of there, we were going to."
The horse had already been moved once from a burned out barn, where it was found standing in a pile of ashes, and taken to a backyard downtown where it was thought the horse would be safe. But with the fire spreading rapidly, the owners were worried.
Poitras escorted the men to the horse — where they loaded it onto the trailer — and back out of town to make sure they were safe. "We were told the child the horse belonged to was extremely happy," says Poitras.
Escaping the city
More than a thousand pets and livestock were left in place as their owners had to quickly evacuate the city, many without first returning home.
"There was a great deal of pressure from unofficial volunteer groups trying to get back in because they believed nothing was being done for the animals, which wasn't the case," says Roland Lines, communications manager for the Alberta Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals (SPCA).
The care of animals in Fort McMurray was the responsibility of the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo (RMWB). As the scope of the emergency increased dramatically in a short period of time, the municipality realized they needed to locate and take care of the animals that were abandoned.
Within two days of having to evacuate, the RMWB set up a system on their website where evacuees could report any animals that needed to be rescued. The online form also gave the RMWB permission to enter homes to rescue pets.
"The information went out over social media and was spread by word of mouth," says Matt Lowther, sergeant administrator with the municipality. "We received a lot of information about animals in need of rescue over a very short period of time."
The municipality had about 25 staff as well as volunteers from official rescue groups, like the Alberta SPCA, who the RMWB asked to assist. "It was quite the ordeal just to get organized," says Sgt. Rich Walkinshaw, RMWB bylaw services. "You don't realize how many pets you have in a community until you start doing it. We just became a big pet rescue company."
In total, they rescued and evacuated more than 1,200 animals. And another 250, mostly fish and reptiles, were cared for in place. Most of the animals that were evacuated were sent to a warehouse in Edmonton set up and run by the Alberta SPCA. There, the pets were re-united with their families.
Planning for the future
While the municipality saved all but 25 of the animals reported to them, this incident along with the Slave Lake forest fire in 2011 and the High River flood in 2013, confirmed the need for municipalities to have an animal emergency plan.
"All municipalities have emergency plans but nobody has thought in depth about animals," says Lowther. "This really brought it home that a plan is needed."
The RMWB, the Alberta SPCA and Alberta Agriculture and Forestry are now in preliminary discussions with the province to develop an animal emergency response package that municipalities in Alberta can choose to adopt. It will focus on several areas including communication, transportation, reunification, data management and media interaction.
In the future, this could mean that communities will be better prepared to deal with the animals. It will also increase the likelihood of successful animal rescue efforts.
"People care deeply about their pets," says Lowther. "It's important to have a plan in place, and for every individual to have a plan in place, to make sure that they look after their pets. But in the event an emergency happens and they can't, they'll know that emergency services will take care of them."