Missing Pets
Last Updated 22 February 2012
Important:
If you are looking for your lost pet, not all adverts may have the word quake in the text,
so for the full missing pets database please
click here:www.petsonthenet.co.nz/ads
If you are looking for your lost pet, not all adverts may have the word quake in the text,
so for the full missing pets database please
click here:www.petsonthenet.co.nz/ads
Excerpt from PetsontheNet - dated 22.02.2012
22 February was a horrific day beyond words, we cannot begin to imagine it. Safe in another city, in another island we watched in disbelief. At first reports of lost pets were few as there were no phone lines and no internet but by Friday the trickle of ads for lost and found pets became a torrent and I was up to early hours for the first few days and weeks administering it all, coordinating with many agencies and supporting people. People would ring all times of day and night to talk or for support. One woman was in the red zone behind the cordon but would not leave her cats who were missing but she would “check in” each day by cellphone. Another woman, a nurse had lost her precious cat but when she had dealt with the terrible injuries all day at work, she would come home and cook pikelets on her BBQ for the old people in her neighbourhood as they had with no power and she had no stove anyway - it was crushed. And then she would look for her cat. She looked for months and then we lost touch. There were just so many pets missing, so many people and so many stories, it was immensely overwhelming. Us humans got very tired and we were probably pretty awful to be around for friends and family demanding meals delivered direct to the computer desk, copious tea and coffee and all other family commitments just dropped for many days as the work level was so desperately high.
In the end we had over 1300 lost and found pets reported as a result of quake in those first few weeks. Eventually about 600 were reunited, or found. The others, we still don’t know what happened to them...
There are still pets listed with us today that went missing on Feb 22 or as a result of one of the many thousands of aftershocks. We are still getting fresh reports of "found" pets that have been hanging around for many many months and are assumed to be quake related.
For those without internet access, 0800 LOSTPET run by the NZ Companion Animal Register was used to take calls for lost and found pets and Julie, Nigel and staff then placed ads on petsonthenet on behalf of those people. Thank you NZCAR for supporting people in this way, literally 24 hours a day for the first few weeks and for giving them vital access to Petsonthenet that they would otherwise not have had.
Canterbury SPCA started listing their found pets with us to help those who could not cross town on liquefied, damaged roads and make it easier for people to see pictures of their found pets. That SPCA continues to place their found pets with us to this day, thank you.
A massive “matching” campaign began with huge help from SAFE with dozens of volunteers in NZ, Australia, UK and the USA matching lost pets to found pets using the internet. Many pets were reunited and one woman in Australia successfully reunited a dog via petsonthenet’s ads.
Although it was a marathon, we suffered nothing like what people down in CHCH did. We still had power and phones, no one was hurt, we had a “normal” sunny day whilst others were enduring terrible losses. But we did help people and we did reunite pets and had we also have been located in Christchurch, we would not have been able to help anything like we were able to from the safety of another part of NZ.
Since then several improvements have been made to petsonthenet to improve the site and help our “disaster readiness”. The search ability of our online database has been massively upgraded, so now you can search with “advanced search” for say an ad with the word “black” in the “Lost cats” category, in Canterbury region only. This would have saved a lot of time during the quake as we could only search “black” NZ wide over ALL categories, it was a basic one word search.. We have also increased our computers from one to three, with one a laptop, so petsonthenet can access the internet in many places, as well as a smartphone. So if something happens to one, we have backups and we can be “mobile”. Double data back ups are in place and also new power protection measures beyond the previous ‘surge” board. How well we are all prepared for another disaster remains to be seen.. but we are far more ready, we hope it’s never needed, but we never know when or if it may be so we have to be ready. Are you?
Lastly, if your pet is still missing as a result of the quake, please relist them with us…If you have a pet found as a result of the quake, please keep that ad renewing. Let’s see if we can help reunite these last ones and finally put the pieces back for the people and their pets of Christchurch.
Below are some pictures of pets still missing (or still unclaimed) , put their name as your “keyword” in the search box to see their ad…. This is only some of them. To see more click "advanced search" and then out the word quake as the keyword and select Canterbury as the region, and click "'search"
22 February was a horrific day beyond words, we cannot begin to imagine it. Safe in another city, in another island we watched in disbelief. At first reports of lost pets were few as there were no phone lines and no internet but by Friday the trickle of ads for lost and found pets became a torrent and I was up to early hours for the first few days and weeks administering it all, coordinating with many agencies and supporting people. People would ring all times of day and night to talk or for support. One woman was in the red zone behind the cordon but would not leave her cats who were missing but she would “check in” each day by cellphone. Another woman, a nurse had lost her precious cat but when she had dealt with the terrible injuries all day at work, she would come home and cook pikelets on her BBQ for the old people in her neighbourhood as they had with no power and she had no stove anyway - it was crushed. And then she would look for her cat. She looked for months and then we lost touch. There were just so many pets missing, so many people and so many stories, it was immensely overwhelming. Us humans got very tired and we were probably pretty awful to be around for friends and family demanding meals delivered direct to the computer desk, copious tea and coffee and all other family commitments just dropped for many days as the work level was so desperately high.
In the end we had over 1300 lost and found pets reported as a result of quake in those first few weeks. Eventually about 600 were reunited, or found. The others, we still don’t know what happened to them...
There are still pets listed with us today that went missing on Feb 22 or as a result of one of the many thousands of aftershocks. We are still getting fresh reports of "found" pets that have been hanging around for many many months and are assumed to be quake related.
For those without internet access, 0800 LOSTPET run by the NZ Companion Animal Register was used to take calls for lost and found pets and Julie, Nigel and staff then placed ads on petsonthenet on behalf of those people. Thank you NZCAR for supporting people in this way, literally 24 hours a day for the first few weeks and for giving them vital access to Petsonthenet that they would otherwise not have had.
Canterbury SPCA started listing their found pets with us to help those who could not cross town on liquefied, damaged roads and make it easier for people to see pictures of their found pets. That SPCA continues to place their found pets with us to this day, thank you.
A massive “matching” campaign began with huge help from SAFE with dozens of volunteers in NZ, Australia, UK and the USA matching lost pets to found pets using the internet. Many pets were reunited and one woman in Australia successfully reunited a dog via petsonthenet’s ads.
Although it was a marathon, we suffered nothing like what people down in CHCH did. We still had power and phones, no one was hurt, we had a “normal” sunny day whilst others were enduring terrible losses. But we did help people and we did reunite pets and had we also have been located in Christchurch, we would not have been able to help anything like we were able to from the safety of another part of NZ.
Since then several improvements have been made to petsonthenet to improve the site and help our “disaster readiness”. The search ability of our online database has been massively upgraded, so now you can search with “advanced search” for say an ad with the word “black” in the “Lost cats” category, in Canterbury region only. This would have saved a lot of time during the quake as we could only search “black” NZ wide over ALL categories, it was a basic one word search.. We have also increased our computers from one to three, with one a laptop, so petsonthenet can access the internet in many places, as well as a smartphone. So if something happens to one, we have backups and we can be “mobile”. Double data back ups are in place and also new power protection measures beyond the previous ‘surge” board. How well we are all prepared for another disaster remains to be seen.. but we are far more ready, we hope it’s never needed, but we never know when or if it may be so we have to be ready. Are you?
Lastly, if your pet is still missing as a result of the quake, please relist them with us…If you have a pet found as a result of the quake, please keep that ad renewing. Let’s see if we can help reunite these last ones and finally put the pieces back for the people and their pets of Christchurch.
Below are some pictures of pets still missing (or still unclaimed) , put their name as your “keyword” in the search box to see their ad…. This is only some of them. To see more click "advanced search" and then out the word quake as the keyword and select Canterbury as the region, and click "'search"