BARTLETT, TENNESSEE, January 12, 2016 — American Humane’s renowned Red Star® Rescue team, accompanied by one of their 50-foot Lois Pope Red Star Rescue Vehicles and two F-350 trucks, has deployed to Tennessee at the request of the City of Bartlett Animal Control to participate in a dramatic early morning raid in Bartlett this week aimed at saving, rehabilitating, and caring for 46 cats and a dog seized from a local home who were allegedly abused and neglected.
The animals have been removed and taken to a temporary emergency animal shelter facility where they will be given food, medical treatment, and intensive 24-hour care until they are out of danger. The Red Star Rescue team is collaborating with Bartlett Animal Control, the Humane Society of Memphis & Shelby County, Animal Response Foundation, and Florida Disaster Animal Response & Transport in this operation. The giant rescue vehicle on the scene is sponsored by philanthropist Lois Pope, and the second truck is sponsored by Mrs. Pope and the Banfield Foundation.
“It is very disheartening to see animals living under these conditions, but we are fortunate to have the resources to fight these injustices,” said Amber Batteiger, a program and outreach specialist for Red Star Rescue and Emergency Services for Animals. “These cats will be rehabilitated and put on the path to a wonderful life.”
This is not the first time that American Humane’s Red Star Rescue team has deployed to assist in a cruelty case in the Memphis area. Last year, the team saved horses, mules and a minihorse in Fayette County who were being intentionally starved and dehydrated in the hot Tennessee summer, and the team also traveled there in 2014 to help horses and a mule forced to endure the cold winter without food. Three years ago, 141 dogs were rescued in deplorable condition from the back of a U-Haul trailer in which they were being transported near Memphis. American Humane helped care for the animals and arranged for a special airlift of those who were not adopted locally to a safe shelter to find forever homes. Red Star was also involved in a hoarding case in Moscow, Tennessee, rescuing and helping to care for more than 140 animals who were being kept in a private home.
American Humane’s Red Star program was created in 1916 at the request of the U.S. Secretary of War to rescue war horses on the battlefields of World War I Europe. Now celebrating a century of saving animals in need, Red Star has been rescuing animals of every kind and has been involved in virtually every major disaster relief effort from Pearl Harbor to 9/11, Hurricane Katrina, the Joplin, Missouri and Moore, Oklahoma tornadoes, the Japanese and Haitian earthquakes, and Superstorm Sandy. Over just the past ten years Red Star teams have saved, helped and sheltered more than 80,000 animals.
To follow the news and support the Red Star team’s emergency work, please visitwww.americanhumane.org.
