Lloyd Brown with Wildlife Rescue of Dade County deployed to Haiti as part of the Humane Society International (HSI) field assessment team. He is a long-time responder with various animal disaster groups both nationally and internationally. With his military background and wealth of experience, he brings sanity to the often-complicated politics of animal disaster field rescue and assessment. He was able to work with contacts in Dominican Republic to stage equipment, supplies, and a small team in preparation for going into Haiti. His mission: to do an "on the ground" assessment of the needs and issues involving animals and to report as soon as possible, as groups endeavor to plan for recovery after such a horrific tragedy.

I got the chance to do an interview of sorts with Lloyd via e-mail–as you can imagine, communication capabilities are at a premium. Here is the highlight of what we discussed:

Give me the overview–what are the animal issues in Haiti and are they a result of the earthquake, or were they there before?

Our team has been doing assessments for several days now and it is our professional opinion that animal issues here are not related to the event of the earthquake. There are a lot of animal issues here, but after speaking with a local American expatriate veterinarian here (who is very well connected in this country) we must agree with her that now is not the time to deal with them