Creating a community that is animal-ready during emergencies

During a disaster, animal owners are responsible for their animals—whether it be one cat or hundreds of cattle. By focusing on the crucial role of communities in animal emergency management, research is helping people to protect and manage their animals more effectively during bushfires, floods and storms.

By Bethany Patch from the Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC. This article was first published in Issue One 2021 of Fire Australia.

When an emergency hits, there are two broad groups of the community who need to respond—people without animals and people with animals, whether that be cats, dogs, chickens, horses or livestock. With 62% of Australian households in this second category, animals will affect many people’s decision-making and behaviour.

New research is guiding the development of new community groups—called Animal Ready Communities (ARCs)—for hazard-prone communities, which are helping to increase animal awareness and preparedness, build resilience, and change the way animal owners in Australia plan for emergencies.

The groups are backed by Bushfire and Natural Hazards CRC research. In an Australian first, the CRC’s Managing animals in disasters project has worked closely with communities to create the new groups. These groups foster closer bonds between animal owners and emergency services—a critical piece of the puzzle.

Led by Associate Professor Mel Taylor, an occupational psychologist at Macquarie University, the CRC research team worked with a community-led group in the Blue Mountains region of New South Wales, called Blue ARC. The researchers’ experiences with Blue ARC, the first group of its kind, are now being used to create other ARCs across Australia, helping communities become animal-ready during natural hazards.

“People feel responsible for their animals. They understand the vulnerability of their animals in natural hazard emergencies and want to plan for them,” Associate Professor Taylor said.

“Networks are essential. While academics aren’t the drivers, we can be the glue.”

Australia’s National Strategy for Disaster Resilience states that communities should be empowered to share responsibility for disaster resilience. Since the 2009 Black Saturday bushfires there has been an increasing push to enable communities to provide support for locals before and during natural hazards. Animals provide another great opportunity to connect communities and help community members work together in disaster preparedness and planning.

The Blue Mountains area in NSW is regarded as one of the most bushfire-prone in the world and so was an ideal candidate for the development of the first ARC. In October 2013, the area experienced its worst bushfires in more than 30 years, with fires burning more than 118,000 hectares and destroying 200 homes. Only six years later, during the spring and summer of 2019–20, more than 80% of the Blue Mountains World Heritage area was burnt by more bushfires, devastating the landscape and its wildlife and uprooting communities once more.

Research about bushfires in this area has identified the impact pets and other animals had on owner behaviour, such as delaying evacuation or failing to evacuate. As such, one of the main aims of the Blue ARC group was to work directly with the community, beginning a dialogue with emergency services and supporting agencies to address local barriers to preparedness and planning for animals. The Blue ARC group now actively supports community resilience in emergency events through better awareness, preparedness, planning and response for companion animals, livestock and native wildlife.

Several NSW Rural Fire Service brigades across the Blue Mountains are using the resources developed by Blue ARC, as well as by the Springwood Neighbourhood Centre and the Mountains Community Resource Network.

To enable the development of ARCs in other communities, the researchers contributed to a NSW SES-led project called ‘Ohana’. This involved producing a new website called Get Ready Animals (www.ses.nsw.gov.au/get-ready-animals), which was launched in August 2020 and funded by the NSW Office of Emergency Management.

The site—a one-stop shop for managing animals during disasters—explains that an ARC is a group of like-minded people or groups of people who come together to promote emergency planning and preparedness for animals. Key to this process is identifying people, resources and safe locations; developing and practising local plans; and working with local emergency services, agencies and councils to build community capability and support resilience. It includes a guide called How to Build an Animal Ready Community, which distils much of the research Associate Professor Taylor’s team completed into an accessible ARC-building template that other communities can use to improve their animal emergency management.

These resources have since been used and expanded in the creation of a new Hawkesbury–Nepean Valley ARC in NSW, which has a greater focus on flood emergencies and large animal ownership. The Hawkesbury–Nepean Valley ARC was led by Infrastructure NSW and undertaken as part of the Hawkesbury–Nepean Floodplain Strategy.

Also included on the Get Ready Animals site are guides on how to bring community groups together around key animal-related concerns, as well as animal emergency plans, checklists for grab-and-go bags for pets, and resources to help care for wildlife affected by disasters. There is also much more information and many other resources and plans.

NSW SES Commissioner Carlene York applauded the site when it was awarded the NSW Resilient Australia Award in 2020. Commissioner York encouraged animal owners to use the resources it provides to ensure their readiness should a disaster hit.

“There are many resources available through the website including How to Build an Animal Ready Community, which is a great guide to help communities and animal groups become more prepared and self-reliant,” she said.

In addition to the Get Ready Animals website, Associate Professor Taylor’s research has recently contributed to two booklets to help people in the Hawkesbury–Nepean Valley and the Blue Mountains prepare themselves and their animals for an emergency. The Keeping Your Animals Safe in an Emergency booklets were codeveloped with key organisations within each community, with input from NSW SES, NSW DPI, Infrastructure NSW, Greater Sydney Local Land Services, Hawkesbury City Council, and NSW RFS, as well as Blue ARC, the Mountains Community Resource Network and Agnes Banks Equine Clinic.

Projects such as this one, with an Australia-centric and community-focused approach, are helping to change the traditional mentality of emergency management, which has been seen solely as a ‘people’ issue. As Commissioner York noted, “We need to make sure our communities are not only prepared themselves, but are preparing for their animals as well.”

By highlighting the impact of animals on people’s behaviours in natural emergencies, this project has reinforced the need to support communities to be prepared and to plan for animals – and helped create the conditions for achieving this.

“We have sought to assist in the national dialogue and the production of plans and community engagement materials to support shared responsibility with communities in this area,” Associate Professor Taylor said.

Keeping your Animals Safe in an Emergency booklets and more information about A/Prof Taylor's work are available via the Managing animals in disasters project page.