Australia is currently flooding, at least parts of it. As footage continues to come from the flood affected areas the common scene is people in boats being rescued or people sitting on top of their houses waiting for rescue. Every so often the footage of people is interrupted by a short clip of a dog climbing from a roof space or a cow walking through waist deep water.
The reality is animals suffer far more from these sorts of disasters than us. While most of us that go through a disaster like this lose most of our belongings, as humans we often get to walk away with our lives. A privilege not afforded to most living creatures. But it seems we mostly forget about them, of course there are groups, rescues and individuals who are helping them but for the most part they are left to fend for themselves, or at least attempt to.
The sympathy you see from the community is never geared towards the animals who lost their lives, whether it be wildlife, pets or livestock, but almost always aimed to the people who lost material possessions. Hell there is sympathy for the farmers that lost the livestock but not for the animals themselves. No we feel bad that Mr farmer-man lost $$$. Not animals, but dollar signs. I mean how do you watch footage of livestock up to their necks in water, no-one coming to save them, clearly terrified and confused, and then have sympathy for the cunt that raised them and left them there?
2021 floods in Murrumbidgee, free use photo wikimedia commons
The wildlife
The wildlife doesn't stand a chance when things like this happen. Aside from the obvious drowning and death associated with flooding there is also displacement. Many animals are washed from their habitats to new places and will attempt to go back. In the more northern parts of the country warnings of sharks and crocodiles in the floodwaters is common (though attacks rare).
The way that we have impacted this land is not always obvious until disaster strikes, the continued worsening of natural disasters can be directly attributed to humans in more ways than one. Australia has cleared forest and natural grasses from enormous swathes of land, replacing it with very shallow rooted grasses for animal grazing or crops. This impacts the environments ability to absorb the excess water and contributes to the increasingly worsening floods.
Next is our infrastructure, with so many paved roads, houses, cleared hardened ground more water runs off and into the already struggling valleys. In my town alone a new estate that went up has caused a dramatic increase in the instances of flooding for residents situated lower. Badly designed drainage is another contributing factor.
Often these sorts of things only become apparent in the worst of the worst weather, sometimes staying hidden for years at a time, but when that "once in a century" flood comes (mind you we have had two "once in a century" floods in the last decade), it just gets worse and worse.
Between the continued urbanisation and loss of land for our native animals these disasters have a greater and greater impact and will continue to do so. Australia is a land of fires and floods, the people and the animals here have been dealing with it for centuries, but as the impact of humans on our planet becomes more clear we will see these disasters happen more and more often and on a worse scale.
Not many places for the animals to go
Why it is hard for me to sympathise with the people
Humans have the privilege of being the smartest animal on earth but it also means we have abilities many other species never will. For one we generally have the ability to know when certain natural disasters are coming, in particular floods and fires. Everyone knows when fire season is and everyone knows when flood season is, more than that we know the places that historically flood. We know when the rain is coming and how much, all of the people in these flood-zones had warning, more than that they built their homes on floodplains these places are known for flooding and they decided "hey let's throw down some more concrete and clear some more of the water soaking trees up and then complain when the rain hits and it floods".
Every time one of these disasters hits footage emerges of a couple of animals being saved, someones dog, a cow, a horse, whatever. Generally though you see the same clip over and over, this year its footage of a dog trying to climb out of a roof. You don't see or hear of all the ones left behind, irresponsible cunts who knew a deadly storm was coming, chose not to leave, and then abandoned the animal at the end when things got too much. They could call for help see, they get the SES, the army, the neighbours and locals, the police, pretty much everyone is out trying to find the people stranded. The people who made the shit choice to stay and try and weather the storm (no pun intended). Their pets though? their livestock? left to die. No room for them in the boats and the helicopters, no time to save them even though their owners and supposed carers could of evacuated and taken them away days before disaster struck.
Yea there is the occasional feel-good story of a couple of guys out in a boat rescuing animals or a group from a shelter pulling together to help but for the majority they are forgotten and left to die. When the water clears and the people have gotten all their rain-soaked stuff replaced I guarantee they go and get some more animals to just do it all again.
Photo of Lismore doing the rounds on social media
As natural disasters continue to worsen, or at least their effects, it is the wildlife and animals who will suffer the most, they will be killed, displaced, injured and when all is said and done their ever-reducing habitat will likely not be there to return to. During the fires we did what we could to help but the floods are too far from us and all I can really do is watch the footage and the news and hope that at least someone, is out there trying to help the animals.