‘Mayor Opposes Idea To Allow Pets On Subway Evacuation Routes’

In [“Mayor Opposes Idea To Allow Pets On Subway Evacuation Routes,” Jill Gardiner, New York, May 23, 2006]. It’s despicable that the mayor has overruled the decision of the commissioners to allow people to take their beloved non-human family members on the trains in case of a natural disaster. What the mayor doesn’t understand is that by being uncompassionate to animals, he is being uncaring about the people who love them. Some people have no one but their animals for companionship. As a registered nurse for the past 26 years, I have encountered numerous such patients, some whose healing was impeded by worry over how frightened their animals must be without them. Shame on the mayor for his abhorrent attitude towards animals and the humans who call them family.

RINA DEYCH
Registered Nurse
Brooklyn

I guess Mr. Bloomberg never watched the TV images of the thousands of pets stranded or abandoned in New Orleans after Katrina. This is not the first time the Mayor has shown a severe lack of sensitivity to everyday New Yorkers. Millions of New Yorkers have pets as their only family members, and millions more have animals that are family members. The idea that many pets would have to be abandoned in a state of emergency is so ludicrous that it denies plausibility. Mr. Bloomberg would do better to prepare this city for the next terror attack or natural disaster like avian flu, and stop worrying about people bringing boa constrictors and donkeys on the subways.

HANK LOWENSTEIN
New York, New York

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