Petra Stock from COSMOS, the scientific magazine of the Royal Institute of Australia interviewed me on the findings in the paper I co-authored as part of a research team from the University of Otago.
The paper “It was one of the worst days of my life: Companion animal owners’ experiences of the Edgecumbe 2017 flood in Aotearoa New Zealand” was published earlier in the month after over a year of peer review in the prestigious International Journal of Disaster Risk Reduction.
The open-access article was co-authored by Nicola Liebergreen, Mike King and Marcelo Rodriguez Ferrere, ensuring a multi-disciplinary focus across law, sociology and ethics.
The research is the first empirical study of its kind in New Zealand, which looks at animal disaster management in the context of urban flooding, specifically the 2017 Edgecumbe Flood. Nearly one in five participants had pets die during the flood.
An emergency services worker quoted in the paper says: “It was one of the worst days of my life and I felt for the animals that we were unable to save, I still have bad dreams a year on, but as they all keep saying no human life was taken.”
Animal Disaster Management 