MONTEREY COUNTY — While smoke filled the Salinas Valley skies from nearby wildfires, volunteer individuals and teams were organizing to rescue pets and bring them to shelter, especially larger animals that would otherwise have to be left behind by owners during fire-related evacuations.
Numerous posts on social media appeared over the past week, in which people with flatbed truck trailers volunteered to haul animals. They were busy going into the emergency areas and picking up animals to get them to safety, taking them to local shelters or private sites, as property owners also posted their ability to offer shelter space for displaced creatures.
Prunedale resident Collette Skinner was one such volunteer who teamed up with others throughout the county, including Lauryn Wilson of Lockwood. Their team, stationed from South Monterey County all the way to Santa Cruz County, was on standby for a call when they weren’t on the move to get animals to safety.
“When this first started, I said, ‘We need to get trailers and make a plan,’” Skinner said.
First, Skinner organized with a handful of people, but then she said they were a group so large they had seven rigs able to travel to Morgan Hill, while another four headed to Carmel Valley.
Skinner said her husband works at a lumber mill, which came in handy as animal sheltering required more than transporting them, but also having the panels, posts and poles ready to give them shelter and shade once they reached their destination. Also needed with so many animals being moved around were other considerations, such as fly mats and salt blocks.
The main goal was to get animals safely “to a location where they can have food and water,” Skinner said.
In just Skinner’s group alone, she estimated they had worked to save at least 600 animals as of Friday evening.
“Anything and everything you can think of, we’ve helped get out,” Skinner said.
She explained her group had dealt with goats, mini donkeys, horses, emus, cows, sheep, peacocks, pigs, llamas and guinea fowl.
“Every call is different,” Skinner said. “You never know what’s going to happen.”
While Skinner said she and her team were paying for gas out of pocket, they appreciated donations from the community as they worked to save animals. She said they had seen not only cash donations to help them keep running, but also food, hay and other needed items for the animals.
“I’m so blessed and so proud of our community for coming together the way they have,” Skinner said.
Her team plans to continue operating on an on-call basis until there are no more calls and the fire activity goes down.
SPCA shelters pets from fires
More than 500 animals had already been rescued and brought to SPCA for Monterey County’s Highway 68 location during the ongoing River and Carmel fires, but an evacuation warning issued over the weekend prompted sheltering the animals at the Monterey County Fairgrounds.
“The SPCA is a leader in disaster preparedness and response in Monterey County, and we have been prepared for this for years,” said Beth Brookhouser, vice president of marketing and communications for the local SPCA. “While we have responded to numerous wildfires throughout California, we have never needed to evacuate our own facilities.”
Brookhouser said all animals previously evacuated to the Highway 68 facility are safe.
Area businesses and organizations coordinated to host evacuated and abandoned animals, including Marina Equestrian Center, Salinas Valley Fairgrounds, Hitchcock Road Animal Services, 101 Livestock, Salinas Rodeo Grounds and numerous volunteer individuals and teams.
According to Salinas Valley Fair CEO TJ Plew, her staff responded to a request Aug. 16 to board 40 horses from south Salinas. The fairgrounds opened its facility in King City and began coordinating with SPCA.
“In the earliest stages of the fires, we made available to the SPCA 55 horse stalls and 50 small animal stalls, with the capacity to add additional stalls as needed,” Plew said.
In order to make room for evacuated animals, SPCA also had to ask for help with its adoptable pets.
“Animal Friends Rescue Project, Peace of Mind Dog Rescue and shelters throughout northern California opened their arms to our adoptable pets so our whole shelter could become an evacuation center,” Brookhouser said.
Of the animals sheltered, she said none had come in with injuries or burns as of Aug. 21.
Before the evacuation, animals sheltered at SPCA for Monterey County included dogs, cats, horses, goats, tortoises, peacocks, chickens, pet fish and more.
“Although we are no longer at our shelter, our level of care and disaster rescue response remains the same,” Brookhouser said.
In addition to evacuation support, SPCA also runs weekly pet food bank distributions. Brookhouser said they were offering pet food and supplies to evacuated families, as well as maintaining a list of local hotels that accept pets.
“We are also evacuating pets from behind fire lines when it is safe to do so,” she said. “We are on call 24 hours a day.”
In the event of evacuation orders, SPCA for Monterey County advises that people take all their animals with them. If assistance with evacuating animals or sheltering them is needed, SPCA can be contacted at 831-373-2631 during the day or 831-264-5455 at night.
“Prepare now to ensure a calm evacuation should you receive orders,” Brookhouser said. “Find a place for your pets now, if possible, so that we can continue to help those who have no other options.”
SPCA for Monterey County is not a chapter of any other agency and they don’t have a parent organization. Everything they do is made possible by the support of donors, including disaster response services.
“Right now, the biggest need is cash donations, which allow us the flexibility to use them for our ever-changing rescue needs,” Brookhouser said.
To donate, visit the website spcamc.org/fire.
