気ままなリライト５６

ペット同行避難 広がる

When it comes to life in an evacuation shelter in the wake of a disaster, the voice of pet owners as evacuees are getting loud and the devotion they have for their animal companions is being shared among disaster relief experts. Led by the government, municipalities are setting up evacuation shelters where pet owners as evacuees are allowed to be accommodated with their animal companions as the conventional evacuation shelters where no pets are allowed mean nothing but a denial of what pet owners have cherished and their helpless feeling is more likely to drive themselves to risk their lives in the pursuit of staying with their animal companions in their own Eden.

Public acceptance of pet animals as their owners’ family members has been a hard nut to crack, especially in disaster-stricken areas. In the wake of the Great East Japan Earthquake, many disaster survivors were torn between leaving their pets behind to take refuge by themselves and staying with their pets without seeking refuge because of the tacit agreement that animal companions are ruled out as eligible partners to be accommodated with their owners in most evacuation shelters. Two years after the earthquake in 2013, the Ministry of Environment stepped in to challenge the tacit agreement by drawing up the guidelines about the responsibility of pet owners to get their pets to evacuation shelters and the responsibility of municipalities to accommodate surviving pets in evacuation shelters, even though they are uninvited guests. However, in the evacuation shelters not being equipped enough to ease the stressful feeling of evacuees allergic to dogs and cats or hypersensitive to pet animals' smells in the same unseparated, narrow space, any mishap caused by accommodated pets provoked a conflict between evacuees taking their pets as their family members and evacuees taking pet animals as a pain in the neck.

With a growing number of people finding solace in keeping pet animals, widespread social acceptance of pets as animals worth being treated as pet owners’ family members has prompted many municipalities with disaster-prone areas to design evacuation shelters as the places less stressful for evacuated pet owners and their pets. In September 2022, Kumamoto city, Kumamoto Prefecture gave a safe haven to local evacuees with their pets in a typhoon-stricken area by setting up an evacuation shelter enabling pet owners to enjoy being with their pets. With 27 households with their pets as their family members accommodated in divided sections contrived to prevent evacuees sensitive to pet animals from harboring a hostile feeling against pet owners or their pets, the shelter was served as a place where each household savored the moment of happy gathering without any missing family member. A pet-friendly evacuation shelter was also constructed in Omachi Town, Saga Prefecture in April 2022 with the help of an animal welfare organization called Japan Rescue Association (JRA). The shelter funded by the prefecture is also served as a hands-on learning center to promote disaster preparedness for dog owners. An overnight stay in the shelter is available as an experiential program designed for the participants to anticipate what will happen to them and their pets in a disaster-simulating situation and to be guided through with tips from JRA’s staff members.