Initial assessments of storm-torn areas in southwestern Louisiana showed that many horse owners were able to get out of Hurricane Rita’s way before it battered the coast as a Category 4 storm on Saturday, Sept. 24. Veterinarians said that while many cattle perished as a result of Rita, only a handful of horses have been found dead, mainly due to the fact that storm surge waters receded more quickly after this storm than after Katrina. It was anticipated that additional reports about horses will continue to come in as more assessments are made.

“We were on the extreme eastern side of the storm,” said Shannon Gonsoulin, DVM, owner of All Creatures Animal Hospital in New Iberia, La., whose clinic was spared by Rita. Some of his colleagues felt the brunt of this hurricane, however. The homes of the parents and grandmother of Chad Richard, DVM, were destroyed by Rita just weeks after Richard spent long days in St. Bernard Parish, La., rescuing horses stranded by Katrina. An All Creatures veterinary technician also lost her home in the storm.

For the most part, equines seem to have done well, a contrast with the hundreds found dead in flooded areas after Katrina.

“Most of the people in these areas own horse trailers and they either evacuated or turned them (the horses) loose,” said Ky Mortensen, director of development for Louisiana State University’s Equine Health Studies Program (EHSP, which has been integral in helping recover and treat horses following Katrina). Mortensen has spent this week driving through Vermillion and Iberian Parishes with EHSP veterinarians and local veterinarians such as Gonsoulin to check on animals about which owners had called the LSU horse hurricane hotline. Calls to the hotline increased on Thursday and Friday of last week, but slowed down during the weekend