New California Veterinary Emergency Team to Coordinate Training, Response
Quick Summary
Evacuating, sheltering, caring for animals is enormous task made more difficult in state under siege from wildfires
California Veterinary Emergency Team to coordinate robust, unified effort to help animals during disasters
Team will recruit and train volunteers, veterinarians on best practices in shelter and emergency medicine
UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine uniquely positioned to administer program
University of California, Davis, leaders, veterinarians and California legislators today unveiled a new emergency program to help rescue animals in disasters. Called the California Veterinary Emergency Team and administered by the UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, the program will support and train a network of government agencies, individuals and organizations to aid domestic animals and livestock during emergencies.
California is providing $3 million a year for the California Veterinary Emergency Team, under legislation authored by Sen. Steve Glazer and incorporated into the state budget recently signed by Gov. Gavin Newsom. The program will be modeled after the UC Davis-led Oiled Wildlife Care Network, created in 1994 to mobilize volunteers and professionals to rescue and treat shorebirds and other wildlife that are injured during oil spills.
“We want to create a robust, coordinated effort statewide to help animals during disasters,” said Michael Ziccardi, director of the Oiled Wildlife Care Network and executive director of the One Health Institute. “The California Veterinary Emergency Team will bring together state and county agencies and organizations charged with emergency response to help them organize, train and adopt best practices.”
Current need
A primary goal of the new California Veterinary Emergency Team is to increase response capacity and help standardize disaster response across counties, bringing together disparate and fragmented groups. Currently, the California Animal Response Emergency System, or CARES, within the California Department of Food and Agriculture is charged with managing evacuation and care of animals during emergencies. They also work with community animal response teams and nonprofit organizations.
“Recent wildfires have overwhelmed the state's ability to safely evacuate and care for household animals and livestock,” Sen. Glazer said. “Twice in the past five years we have had to call on Texas to send an emergency team to assist. That puts not just animals at risk but also increases the danger for residents and first responders if people stay behind fire lines because they fear their animals will not be cared for. We need this new team to help train, coordinate and lead the hundreds of volunteers who are eager to help. Our goal is a team that is ready to respond anywhere in the state with a mobile command center, a clinic if necessary, and the veterinarians, equipment and medicine to get the job done.”
The California Veterinary Emergency Team would be available to mobilize response to disasters anywhere in California, operating under a memorandum of understanding with the California Department of Food and Agriculture and the Office of Emergency Services. Between disasters, the team would recruit, train and drill volunteers, conduct research, and train veterinarians and veterinary students on best practices in shelter and emergency medicine.
Leaders in the field
UC Davis has provided leadership in veterinary disaster response through its Veterinary Emergency Response Team, Wildlife Disaster Network partnership formed with the California Department of Fish and Wildlife, and its Veterinary Medical Teaching Hospital disaster patient care. UC Davis VERT and hospital teams typically triage, evaluate, treat and/or rescue more than 1,000 animals in the field in every fire. During the 2018 Camp Fire alone, the teams helped more than 1500 animals, including 70 that were brought in for treatment at the hospital.
“The funding of the California Veterinary Emergency Team provides unprecedented resources that will bring multiple partners across the state of California together to enhance recruitment, coordination, and training of volunteers, veterinarians and veterinary students in best practices in disaster response and sheltering of animals in disasters,” said Michael Lairmore, former dean and distinguished professor at the School of Veterinary Medicine.
Lairmore said the university is committed to working with partners across the state to ensure that the California Veterinary Emergency Team program is successful. Developing the California Veterinary Emergency Team is expected to take some time. It's anticipated the program will be in an organizational phase during this fire season.
Media Resources
Media Contacts:
Michael Ziccardi, UC Davis School of Veterinary Medicine, 530-979-7561, mhziccardi@ucdavis.edu
Steve Harmon, communications director for Sen. Steve Glazer, 916-539-5005
Early in the 20th century, dairy operators traded their milking stools for machines to produce enough dairy products to meet growing consumer demand.
The technological developments were critical to the formation of California's enormous dairy industry, the largest in the nation. Today, more than 1.7 million cows produce 39.8 billion pounds of milk in California each year, according to the California Milk Advisory Board.
The march of progress continues. The state's dairy industry is now beginning to integrate robots and sophisticated computer software into cow barns to maintain the supply of wholesome and inexpensive dairy foods for Americans. UC Cooperative Extension scientists are poised to help them adapt to the new technologies.
On most California dairies, cows are led two or three times each day from the barn to the milking parlor by workers. They clean the cows' udders to remove bacteria and surface dirt, evaluate whether the cow has mastitis, attach the milking machines, and disinfect the cow's teats after milking before taking the cows back to their pens.
“Dairy production is automated, but it is still a very labor intensive activity,” said Fernanda Ferreira, UC Cooperative Extension dairy specialist based at the UC Veterinary Medicine Teaching and Research Center in Tulare. “Farmers always tell us that the most challenging thing they are facing is labor – labor availability, training and cost.”
Milking robots – a technology already being used in dairies in the Midwest and Eastern U.S., Europe, South America and Canada – promises greater automation, reduced labor needs and improved animal welfare.
View a short video clip of the milking robot in action.
The machines don't resemble a stereotypical robot character, but rather are computerized boxes large enough to fit one cow, with a robot arm programmed to reach under the cow and clamp onto the teats. Cows do not need to be led to the milking machine, but rather walk into the box voluntarily when they are ready to be milked.
The machine recognizes each individual cow by a computer tag around her neck or on the ear, and provides personalized milking service. The robots do all the work: clean the teats, attach the milking machines, and disinfect the teats after the milking is done. While milking, the robot collects data on the cow's output and health.
When it comes to California and all the West, these are very new,” Ferreira said. “We're talking herds that have 1,800 cows on average. Huge herds. Since each of the robotic units, which serve 60 to 70 cows, costs about $120,000, we're also talking about a huge investment.”
Two San Joaquin Valley dairies have already installed milking robots, and many others are interested in the new technology. Ferreira and other researchers from the VMTRC in Tulare are collaborating with one of them to study how the machine and the herd's management can be adapted to better serve large-scale dairy herds like those in California.
“Our idea is to first understand the perspective of the producers who have cows being milked by robots. We want to know what they have learned so far, the challenges they have encountered, their relationship with banks,” Ferreira said. “Relationships with banks are important because most dairies will need to borrow funds to equip their facilities with enough robots for full automation.”
Future research will review issues of milk quality, mastitis management and determine what data farmers will need from the computerized system to improve dairy profitability.
“There are a lot of options available from companies that manufacture the robots. We want to fully understand how they work for our farmers and cows to be able to inform the future of California's dairy industry,” Ferreira said.
Calypte anna (Anna's hummingbird) nectaring blossoms. (Photo by Scott Logan, Wild Wings Ecology)
Calypte anna (Anna's hummingbird) nectaring blossoms. (Photo by Scott Logan, Wild Wings Ecology)
Calypte anna (Anna’s hummingbird) sipping sugar water from feeder. (Photo by Scott Logan, Wild Wings Ecology)
Calypte anna (Anna’s hummingbird) sipping sugar water from feeder. (Photo by Scott Logan, Wild Wings Ecology)
Experimental feeders at a field site in Winters, Calif. The researchers assigned hummingbird feeders to one of three treatments: (1) access by both hummingbirds and insects (open feeders), (2) restricted access by birds but access by insects allowed (caged feeders, 1.5 cm square mesh), or (3) restricted access by both birds and insects (feeders bagged using gallon paint strainer bags), with two replicates of each treatment set up at each site. (Photo by Casie Lee)
Experimental feeders at a field site in Winters, Calif. The researchers assigned hummingbird feeders to one of three treatments: (1) access by both hummingbirds and insects (open feeders), (2) restricted access by birds but access by insects allowed (caged feeders, 1.5 cm square mesh), or (3) restricted access by both birds and insects (feeders bagged using gallon paint strainer bags), with two replicates of each treatment set up at each site. (Photo by Casie Lee)