Omer 2019 Day 19: National Animal Disaster Preparedness Day

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Omer 2019 Day 19: Hod in Tiferet, Glory/Humility in Balance
National Animal Disaster Preparedness Day

Image by Hans Braxmeier from Pixabay

If you have a pet, today is the day to make sure you have a disaster plan that takes care of your whole family, including your pets. Ready.gov has tips to get you started. National Animal Disaster Preparedness Day recognizes that the middle of a disaster is not the time to trust yourself to be clear-headed. Instead, prepare beforehand, so that when you have to get up and go, you know what to do with your pet.

Looking beyond immediate family, in the realm of wildlife conservation, the question of how to best put our resources to use arises often. Who needs our help the most? Where will our dollars do the most good? Is it best to focus on one species, or should we focus on restoring the ecosystem as a whole? Can any real change be made without the help of policy-makers? Which ecosystems are most likely to benefit? Often, the idealist in all of us tends to gravitate toward helping the most glorious, charismatic animals like pandas or elephants. But there is also glory in balance, and in recognizing that even the toughest, most independent-living creatures require a complex network of other organisms to thrive. Whether we choose to focus on saving the rain forest or cleaning up our local riverbeds, any efforts we make toward reducing the human impact on natural ecosystems - big or small, global or local - is an important step toward being a responsible citizen of our planet.

This year's animal Omer is a collaboration between myself and my friend Halli, a PhD in animal science. Thank you for counting the Omer with us!