Animal Rescue Flights

Hi, my name is Julia. I am co-organizer of Animal Rescue Flights, a volunteer organization dedicated to promoting, planning, and performing air transports of animals from overcrowded shelters to safe shelters and rescues where qualified families are waiting to adopt them. We use the skills, time and resources of general aviation volunteer pilots who are part of our Animal Rescue Flights Meetup group to complete these transports. Please be patient with us as we grow our volunteer pilot network across the country. The more pilots we recruit, the more animals we can help...so recruiting is a top priority.

We have set up a forum on Meetup.com where shelters and rescues can post their animal transport needs. If you have needs for animal transport and would benefit from air transport, please join the Animal Rescue Flight Forum and post your needs as they arise. We will monitor this forum daily and will work to help out on any that we can.

No animal left behind,

Julia
Co-Organizer, Animal Rescue Flights
Co-Organizer, Animal Rescue Flights Forum

Welcome, Julia!

How would rescue orgs go about using you if they need you? And are you functioning in the state of WA yet?

Hello Julia and welcome to Washington (virtually)

I think this is an excellent idea for animals that were relinquished and their history is known. Here is the concern I have:

I am the owner of a very beautiful lynx point Birman type cat. She went missing Feb 9th and a police search dog team tracked her scent and told me she was picked up and put in a vehicle! I have spent several thousand dollars and most of my time trying to find her. I've gone through all the shelters in Washington and I wonder if she has been taken out of state. Obviously it's a physical impossibility to check every shelter every day.

This started me doing some research. I culled stats on my area.

SEVEN out of THIRTY missing animals in Gig Harbor (my area) are WITNESSED being stolen. This suggests an untold number were NOT witnessed. These are usually purebreds or in the case of cats, anything unusual or pointed. Our society allows these thieves to operate in secrecy by forbidding signs on the roadway, and an expensive, time consuming and unproductive search usually grinds owners to a halt. 18 out of the 30 gave up looking after only a few weeks.

The stolen animal will be sold or dumped a long way away from where they were picked up. Taking a stolen animal out of state further decreases the likelihood of a reunion. Of course you will not know which ones are stolen - and many stolen are hard to adopt, like my 10 yr old cat with health problems.

At least if you photograph each animal and keep these photos online, with confidential records of any adoption, people who have lost animals can look for theirs online and call you. At very least you can confirm they have been adopted, or even send their contact information to the new owners, who may appreciate having the animal's social and medical history.

In the case of a known stolen animal, law enforcement can then gather information and hopefully trace back to whomever first picked the animal up.

Extrapolating my "stats" to our local shelter, that means about 30% or more may have been stolen and are a long way from someone who is frantically looking for them, or has given up, but would still love to have them home if they were found. Prior to flying an animal to another state, is there a way a photo and description could be sent out so people with a lost cat can check through it?

What we really need is a national database that can search on color or breed, and good records kept on animals.

I have come to believe that "strays" are usually animals that were loved and lost. Through no fault of either my cat or I, she has been taken out of my reach. Anything we can do to stop animal theft will be beneficial for society and the animals.

Hi Julia

I would like to know why an animal has to be shiped. Because I posted an available kitty on the petfinder classifieds had alot of response. Can these reponses be legit why would someone want to adopt a cat from outside their local area? One I responded back asking 1,000,000$ and got a phone number I didn't call to see if it was a real number. Anyone know why so many responses like this. Thanks for your time.