Animals in Lebanon

From another email, please help if you can

Dear Members and Friends,

Please excuse a second e-mail in two days. This one is about the ANIMALS IN LEBANON.

It’s been tough for the animals on both sides of the Lebanon/Israel border, but for the animals in Lebanon, as you can imagine, it’s a major disaster. Thousands of them abandoned by evacuees who are being told by their governments to leave their pets behind. And thousands more just caught up in the general chaos. (Imagine Hurricane Katrina -- but with bombs and rubble instead of floodwaters.)

There’s one main rescue group in Lebanon – Beirut for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, or BETA (no relation to the U.S. group PETA) – and they’re hanging on by a thread. Their shelter was hit, but they’ve managed to evacuate the dogs from there to a place in the hills, donated by a German supporter.

We’ve set up a new section on the Best Friends Network: http://network.bestfriends.org/middleeast. It’s updated regularly. Emergency funds are much needed by the BETA folks to buy food and medicine that can be brought in from Jordan and Syria. You can donate from the news page at http://network.bestfriends.org/middleeast, or you can send directly to BETA. We’ve asked them to keep us posted on their needs.

Thanks for caring,

Michael Mountain
Best Friends

[valerie]

Thanks for posting that, I'm going to pass it on, see what we can do...

[LilacDragon]

Has anyone checked this place out at all.

DH was just in the Middle East, my Dr. is from Afganistan and my dentist is from the Middle East also. DH tells me that pet dogs and cats are almost unheard of and both my doctor and my dentist do not understand the obsession we with pets. Neither of them would ever have a dog in their home.

While I don't doubt that animals are suffering in any war torn area, please make sure you check things out well before sending someone your money.

I have the utmost trust in anything to do with the Best Friends organization.

Edit: And while I agree with you that you should check any organization out before sending money, I would NOT post this on here if I wasn't confident that the money would be put to good use.

So, that being said, please check it out and donate what you can. Thank you.

[spot]

One might think that the surviving relatives of the 16,500 dead cows in California this week would be as deserving of any measure of assistance that's available from local charities. I agree that any animals left in Southern Lebanon who were previously cared for by the now-absent half million previous residents will be dying in droves, but they'll not be dogs or cats so much as cattle and goats. Cattle and goats don't really fit into convoys of the dispossessed.

Why are cows dying in California anyway, if everything else there is lying on a beach enhancing its tan?

[chonsigirl]

Because of the heat wave, dear spot. It had record breaking temperatures-up in the 110s-and the cattle died from the heat. One hundred people so far have died from it.

[spot]

Originally Posted by chonsigirl

Because of the heat wave, dear spot. It had record breaking temperatures-up in the 110s-and the cattle died from the heat. One hundred people so far have died from it.

But those are the astoundingly aged folk who believe the TV anchors who say keeping windows locked is the only way to stay alive in these dangerous times, I thought.

Why are cows dying when everything else outdoors isn't?

Not funny.

I used to like you.

[BabyRider]

Originally Posted by spot

Why are cows dying when everything else outdoors isn't?

While I don't know for sure what's happening out there, Spot, I'm sure it's more than just cows. I'd wager horses, and even dogs are dropping from this heat. Without proper protection from the direct sun, it doesn't surprise me a bit that these animals are keeling over dead.

[valerie]

So far it's being reported that most of the human deaths are due to
power failures. There are many "cooling centers" being set up to try
and help. And the number just reported is 139 now.

It's mainly dairy cattle that are dying, the big farms in the central
valley are having drop offs in milk production, too. The valley normally
has heat, yes, but this had been unrelenting for quite some time...
I just heard on the news that Sacramento broke a 100-something year
old record... 11 days with triple digit heat. Dairy cows just cannot
withstand it, giving milk takes a very large toll on them in heat
like that. Some ranches have large scale misters, and those do
help some.

So far, BR, not any reports of other animals dying. (Not to say there
haven't been any, of course).