A now completed local SAR operation that took place here over the weekend has an interesting twist to it and has elicited some varied responses on whether this SAR OP was the right thing to do. I have a lot of respect for the North Shore SAR. This fine group of women and men are some of the best of the best in the civilian SAR world...anywhere and I think was the right thing to do and back them 100 percent.

The gist of the story is that a dog belonging to some locals got loose a couple of weeks ago and took off in the back country which is well renown around here for it's rugged and dangerous terrain, especially this time of year when winter conditions make the area that much more treacherous. The dog owners and friends wanted to go in attempt to find/rescue the dog and this soon leaked out on the usual social media sites and many people (not me or anyone I know) volunteered to undertake this search. The local SAR team was concerned that given the winter weather conditions, the terrain involved and probable volunteer inexperience that this volunteer search would end in a human tragedy.

Tim Jones, of North Shore Search and Rescue said volunteers, most of them strangers to Ohly’s human family, were determined to rescue the dog themselves. “This was a serious public safety concern,” said Jones. “If we hadn’t gone looking for that dog we would have had a rescue or a body recovery.”

In order to preempt a possible human rescue or recovery, the SAR team went in and eventually got the dog on the weekend.

A few links on the story:

http://www.vancouversun.com/news/Team+re...2154/story.html

http://www.vancouversun.com/travel/rescu...7101/story.html

Video
http://www.globaltvbc.com/video/dog+rescued/video.html?v=2313995679&p=2&s=dd#video

http://www.globaltvbc.com/video/tim+jones+on+dramatic+dog+rescue/video.html?v=2314114491#guests