Volunteers for IDA's Project Hope animal relief team report that the crisis for animals in New Orleans is far from over. Thousands of animals who have escaped out of the broken windows or doors of hurricane-damaged homes now roam the streets with nothing to eat. Hundreds of residential and commercial blocks where communities and businesses once thrived are now completely deserted except for former companion animals suffering from starvation, dehydration, disease and untreated injuries. With no humans living in these ghost towns, animals don't even have trash to eat as a last resort. Tragically, it seems as if the situation may only get worse in the coming months because many of the now-stray animals are not spayed and neutered, and have already begun to breed. According to one study, a single unspayed female cat and her offspring can produce as many as 420,000 progeny in the space of just seven years, and a fertile dog and her young can produce 67,000 puppies in a mere six years.

IDA has recently brought longtime volunteer Eric Phelps on as a contract worker to help make our animal relief efforts in the New Orleans area as effective as possible. He and IDA volunteer Val Mizuhara - dedicated animal advocate and co-owner of Mill Valley Cycleworks in California's Marin County - are currently in the 9th Ward area of New Orleans replenishing food and water stations and looking for roaming animals. They commonly see homeless cats who immediately run away in fear at the approach of humans. While continuing his ongoing relief efforts in New Orleans, Eric also works with the overburdened shelter in Waveland, Miss., where animals in need of foster homes continue to arrive daily. Over the next two months, Eric plans to help this shelter place animals in homes in other parts of the country. He continues to bring animals with him on return trips home to Virginia, and the San Francisco-based Rocket Dog Rescue is flying several dogs out of Waveland to place in the Bay Area.

Adding to the surviving animals' misery, Louisiana's Governor has declared the Hurricane Katrina rescue phase over, and has banned out-of-state veterinarians from volunteering their services to save the animals slowly dying in greater New Orleans. Authorities have threatened out-of-state relief workers with arrest for attempting to give food and water to animals in Orleans Parish, and outside rescue groups have been ordered to leave the state and defer to local agencies, despite their inability to care for the remaining animals and resolve the imminent overpopulation emergency. This shortsighted policy is forcing rescue organizations to abandon animals in their time of greatest need. Nevertheless, IDA refuses to give up on the cats and dogs whose will to live is evident in their continued survival, and the efforts of our Project Hope team will continue as long as the animals need our help.

Read more about previous Project Hope victories

• IDA-Project Hope Rescues Three Emaciated Horses

• IDA-Project Hope Rescues Two Horses with Panola County Sheriff's Dept.

• IDA-PH Gives Desperate Dog New Hope

• Help Project Hope Continue Its Lifesaving Work

• IDA's Project Hope Hurricane Relief Team Takes Animals to Northern Shelters

• IDA's Project Hope Animal Relief Team Remains on the Job

• IDA's Project Hope Hurricane Relief Team in Mississippi

• IDA's Project Hope Animal Rescue Team Among Handful of Groups in New Orleans

• IDA's Project Hope Continues Animal Rescue Work in New Orleans