As we are emerging from the COVID pandemic, I find myself longing for some good news. Recently, I found it in two stories of people who risked their lives to rescue endangered cats; two stories of people who—like our own volunteers—demonstrate the fundamental goodness and compassion toward ALL living things that lives in the human heart.
The first involves a daring rescue of four cats from a burning, sinking ship by Thai naval personnel. The Thai ship had approached a sinking fishing vessel to check for oil spills. Although the human crew had been previously rescued, they saw four cats trapped on board. Even though the vessel was on fire, the crew risked their own lives to save the four cats. You can read more about this heroic rescue in the Washington Post article.
The second story tells of Sakae Kato’s work in rescuing cats in the contaminated quarantine zone of the Fukushima nuclear reactor disaster. Sakae stayed behind to rescue cats who were abandoned when people fled the radiation clouds released when the Fukushima nuclear plant was damaged by a tsunami. He plans to remain in this dangerous, abandoned region as long as there are animals in need of rescue. Read more about his heroic efforts in this article from Reuters, and visit this photo essay from The Guardian.