Animal rescue agencies feud over Valley fire efforts

Amid the fevered response to the Valley fire crisis, a conflict broke out between two animal welfare agencies - one governmental, the other a nonprofit - after one evicted the other from emergency animal care efforts in Lake County.

Petaluma Animal Services, a nonprofit organization deeply involved in animal relief efforts in the fire-devastated county, posted on Facebook on Wednesday evening that its agency’s animal control officers near Middletown had been told to leave.

“We’ve been asked to leave Lake County by Lake County Animal Control Director Bill Davidson, as we’re ‘not authorized to be there,’ ” Jeff Charter, the Petaluma agency’s executive director, wrote in the post. “He told us flatly to get out. Since we’re about the animals, we respectfully declined. We will not leave, we will not argue, we are here for the people and animals suffering from this disaster.”

John Madigan, a UC Davis veterinarian leading the emergency veterinarian responder effort, said he witnessed the confrontation between Davidson and a worker with the Petaluma agency and that Davidson was being heavy-handed, “tearing up” the animal relief volunteer.

He said his own six-person team was about to pull out at that time, but it, too, has since been told that it didn’t have proper authorization and can’t return without it.

“This director of animal services, I’m perplexed at someone spending time limiting access of professional volunteers with extensive emergency work experience. It doesn’t make much sense to me,” Madigan said.

Thursday, Charter said that his four-person team had pulled out of Lake County. The organization remains in a central role at the Calistoga evacuation center, where more than 300 animals are temporarily lodged.

A Lake County supervisor put the onus for the dispute on Charter’s organization but said fences need to be mended. And Davidson, Lake County’s animal control chief, said Charter’s version of events is mostly correct: His group was asked to leave.

That, said Davidson, is because animal service groups hoping to work in the fire zone must go through the authorization process with the county’s Office of Emergency Services. Petaluma Animal Services didn’t, he said.

“That’s 100 percent false,” Charter said. His staff was properly checked in with Lake County officials, including law enforcement officers who had permitted them through checkpoints, he said.

Madigan said he had similar permissions, including a “mission number” assigned to those authorized to work in the area.

“It just made no sense to me. I drove through every roadblock with a mission number, and I checked in with every Cal Fire,” he said.

Facebook quickly exploded over the matter.

“It’s been crazy,” Davidson said in a Thursday interview about the social media storm that followed his confrontation with the Petaluma group.

Hundreds of people chimed in on Facebook, nearly all condemning Davidson and urging people to call or email him to express their displeasure.

Davidson said that he was acting at the behest of the Lake County Sheriff’s Office, which said he had to clear out unauthorized volunteers from the Middletown area because looters were active there.

As well, he said, some animal relief workers, including those from Petaluma Animal Services, were removing animals from the area to get veterinary assistance without properly informing his office.

“It significantly reduces our ability to keep track of them, and we want to reunite them with their owners,” Davidson said. “Just showing up ... and starting to pull animals is not the way to do it.”

Charter said Davidson was hostile and that the actions made no sense.

“What we were trying to do was get food and water to the animals that were starving in Lake County; my guys were in a marked vehicle and working with the firefighters that were there and the sheriff’s deputies.”

He added: “I’m not sure what his (Davidson’s) deal was. He was just really out of line with me, ‘Get your stuff and get out.’ ”

He said he had spoken to Lake County officials who were trying to get the Petaluma agency readmitted.

“The bottom line is we’ve talked to people in the county and they definitely need the help. And we’re going to provide it,” he said.

One official he spoke with, Lake County 4th District Supervisor Anthony Farrington, said “things got heated and egos got in the way.” But he said Petaluma Animal Services was responsible for the dust-up.

“Things would have been fine if PAS had come in and followed proper protocol, and they didn’t,” he said. “Nobody even knew that they were in the county, and they made no contact with our law enforcement, government agencies or Animal Control Services.”

Nevertheless, he said, he was working to repair the breach and get the Petaluma agency back to work in Lake County.

“We need multi-agency support,” Farrington said. “This is bigger than our county alone and I support any agency working with our county. And the key is, working with our county.”

You can reach Staff Writer Jeremy Hay at 521-5212 or jeremy.hay@pressdemocrat.com. On Twitter ?@jeremyhay.