No Pet or Their Person Left Behind: Increasing the Disaster Resilience of
Vulnerable Groups through Animal Attachment, Activities and Networks
#MMPMID26480038
Thompson K
; Every D
; Rainbird S
; Cornell V
; Smith B
; Trigg J
Animals (Basel)
2014[May]; 4
(2
): 214-40
PMID26480038
show ga
Increased vulnerability to natural disasters has been associated with particular
groups in the community. This includes those who are considered de facto
vulnerable (children, older people, those with disabilities etc.) and those who
own pets (not to mention pets themselves). The potential for reconfiguring pet
ownership from a risk factor to a protective factor for natural disaster survival
has been recently proposed. But how might this resilience-building proposition
apply to vulnerable members of the community who own pets or other animals? This
article addresses this important question by synthesizing information about what
makes particular groups vulnerable, the challenges to increasing their resilience
and how animals figure in their lives. Despite different vulnerabilities, animals
were found to be important to the disaster resilience of seven vulnerable groups
in Australia. Animal attachment and animal-related activities and networks are
identified as underexplored devices for disseminating or 'piggybacking'
disaster-related information and engaging vulnerable people in resilience
building behaviors (in addition to including animals in disaster planning
initiatives in general). Animals may provide the kind of innovative approach
required to overcome the challenges in accessing and engaging vulnerable groups.
As the survival of humans and animals are so often intertwined, the benefits of
increasing the resilience of vulnerable communities through animal attachment is
twofold: human and animal lives can be saved together.
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