California Veterinary Emergency Team Ready to Help Animals in Wildfires
UC Davis-Administered Program to Care for Animals Affected by Disasters Statewide
Quick Summary
- The California Legislature passed a bill forming the California Veterinary Emergency Team (CVET) in 2021.
- CVET is ready to lead a statewide coordinated effort to provide veterinary care when disasters strike.
- The previous UC Davis Veterinary Emergency Response Team (VERT) was folded into CVET.
Evacuating, sheltering and caring for animals are enormous tasks made more difficult in a state under siege from wildfires. But the California Veterinary Emergency Team, or CVET, is ready to lead a statewide coordinated effort to provide veterinary care when disasters like wildfires strike.
Administered by the One Health Institute at the University of California, Davis, School of Veterinary Medicine, CVET supports and trains a network of government agencies and organizations to aid domestic animals and livestock during emergencies.
This fire season, CVET is ready to assist counties across the state with veterinary rescue and care when local resources have been exhausted and state assistance is needed.
“We are 100 percent ready to deploy and respond should a wildfire or any other disaster require veterinary response or assistance,” said William Burke, associate director of planning for CVET.
With the formation of CVET, the personnel, equipment, knowledge and legacy of the previous UC Davis Veterinary Emergency Response Team, or VERT, was folded into CVET. This expanded UC Davis’ veterinary disaster response capacity from a local county effort to a statewide response. UC Davis VERT typically triaged, evaluated, treated or rescued more than 1,000 animals every wildfire season.