The New Brunswick SPCA is offering to help pet owners retrieve animals left behind in homes affected by the historic flooding along the Saint John River.
They’re asking anyone who evacuated their homes and left animals behind to contact them so animal protection officers, with the help of local fire departments, can check in on the pets.
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“If we don’t get the call ourselves, the Oromocto Fire Department has picked up a few animals the last couple of days. They’ll bring them over to land, they’ll contact us, our animal protection officers pick up the animals and take it to the nearest SPCA shelter,” said Tony Porter, the chief animal protection officer with the New Brunswick SPCA.
“We’re asking people if they do have domestic animals like cats and dogs left in residences along the flood zone to notify our emergency hotline number or go on our Facebook page and advise us of that and we can go through the proper procedures to get them out of there.”
Porter says they have rescued “dozens” of animals so far this week and that number keeps growing. Among the animals rescued were 100 head of cattle from two farms, that are now Fredericton Exhibition grounds.
At this point, however, he says it’s mainly cats that need rescuing.
Some barn cats have been “scooped out of the waters,” while house cats may need more food.
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“[Residents who evacuated] will leave enough food and so forth in the houses but now that the flood looks like it’s going to last for more than several days, the cats now need to be picked up out of the houses and taken to shelters where they can get the proper food and stuff,” Porter said.
Porter says the SPCA expects to receive more calls in the coming days, as conditions worsen and evacuations persist.
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Anyone looking to contact the NB SPCA can call 506-451-5123 or reach them through their Facebook page.