Charlie Wismer’s Dairy Farm in Trappe PA had a barn fire that killed his cows. His son saved some of them. Charlie was the first person I knew who saved his farm from real estate investors. What’s happening to dairy farmers in Canada is horrifying.

 

"Local officials pleaded with about 300 people who defied the order. “If you are still on Sumas Prairie, you need to leave,” said Henry Braun, the mayor of Abbotsford. “I know it’s hard for farmers to leave their livestock, but people’s lives are more important to me right now than livestock or chickens.”

Lana Popham, minister of agriculture for British Columbia, said the storm had battered a key part of the province’s farmland, setting off an animal welfare crisis.

“There are probably hundreds of farms that have been affected by flooding. Some are still underwater, some are on dry locations and we have thousands of animals that have perished,” she said. “We have many, many more that are in difficult situations.”

Officials were racing to carve out routes in impassable areas to get veterinarians to stranded animals, she said. “There will have to be euthanizations that happen, but there are also animals that have survived that are going to be in critical need of food in the next 24 hours.”

Popham said she had spent the past two days on video calls with farmers affected. “Some of them are in their barns, and some of their barns are flooded and you can see the animals are deceased,” she said. “It’s heartbreaking.”

She said while some farmers had towed cows out of the flood waters, the rescued animals were “not in good shape” after their ordeal. “I can also tell you that many farmers attempted to move animals and then had to walk away because the roads were disappearing beneath them.”"

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Canada floods leave thousands of farm animals dead and more trapped

Frantic rescue operation to save livestock from submerged farms underway, with many animals in desperate need of food

Ashifa Kassam