Neither humans nor wildlife plan for a 500-1,000 year flood. An event with a 1 in 500 (1,000) chance of occurring isn’t worth the investment for either humans or wildlife, although people in Houston now are wondering if that risk assessment is still valid (maybe it’s 1 in 10). Wildlife populations have taken hurricane hits in the past and recovered as a population, although individual animals don’t survive. But wildlife is now living among human developments and in an environment tweaked by human actions that create unnatural circumstances.
Bats live under bridges humans designed without anticipating that flood waters would rise to bridge level. Now some bats are swimming trying to get back to their roosts (I hope there’s not a maternity colony under there). Some of the largest bat colonies in the U.S. are found under bridges.
In the whatever humans can invent humans can circumvent category is this hero.
I’ve written before about ants self-assembling into rafts to ride out floods. This time people would be happier if these ants weren’t so resourceful! (Helpful Hint — the floating fire ants are real. Photos of sharks in downtown Houston flood waters are fake.)
Cornell Lab of Ornithology is taking reports and photos of birds displaced in the hurricane. They also are mapping them as shown in the screenshot below (click on this link to see the map as it regularly updates). Pelagic birds who normally fly over the open ocean are blown off course and seen inland. There are two types of disruption by hurricanes, generally. Displacement (birds moved or concentrated by the winds) shoves seabirds to the coast. Entrainment (birds moving within the storm, presumably in the eye or at upper levels in the storm) carries them far inland.
Some birds get trapped in the eye of a hurricane (entrained).
Hurricane watchers have probably seen the Cooper’s hawk that landed inside someone’s taxi cab. The taxi driver tried to get Harvey to fly off, thinking he’d been taken to safety, but Harvey isn’t having any of that fake safety. If you click on the link and go to Youtube, there are 6 more daily updates on Harvey (and views of his rescuer’s lifestyle that seems iconically Texan to me).
The scared (possibly juvenile recently fledged) Cooper’s hawk Harvey is safe enough but might be better served if he were taken to a wildlife rescue group. This might not be feasible given the flooding and unusable roads. One group is offering help.
Wildlife Rescue and Rehabilitation is open and prepared to take in injured or orphaned wildlife that have been displaced as a result of Hurricane Harvey.
Available 24 hours a day to Bexar county and surrounding areas, WRR will be open around-the-clock to take in animals. To report an injured or displaced animal, you can call the WRR hotline at (830) 336-2725. WRR is relying on hundreds of volunteers over the next week weeks and who will rescue animals in need.
Monday, Aug 28, 2017 · 10:16:47 PM +00:00
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Besame
The animal disaster rescue group from my area is on call and may be sent in to help with domestic animals. I intentionally didn’t include companion and domestic animals here for brevity. That’s too big an issue for my time/energy today. Friends are involved with North Valley Animal Disaster Group.
The NVADG said it's been put on standby to help with the Houston flooding. The volunteers train year around to be there for animals when their owners can't be. This means opening emergency shelters, going beyond fire lines to evacuate animals and/or feeding them while their owners are still not allowed home.
During the Wall Fire, the group said it received over 800 calls for service. Now, FEMA has alerted them that they may soon be needed for Hurricane Harvey.
"It's vital and that's why FEMA has made it a top importance and the state of California has also," said one NVADG volunteer, Kate Leyden. "We have recognized with floods and fires that it's so important to get the people out so that the firefighters can do their work so that people don't die, but in order to get the people out they need to be able to bring their animals also."