Absolutely, the SAR team made the right decision. Our team always responds to animal rescues for several reasons. First, as noted in the article, it prevents untrained individuals who attempt to rescue the animal from becoming victims themselves. Second, we view the animal rescue as a training opportunity and while we make every reasonable attempt to perform the rescue in a timely manner, we definitely take our time and mitigate as much of the risk as possible. Third, tremendous public goodwill, donations will often follow the rescue, even when we have been unsuccessful.

A winter ago, we rescued a dog that had fallen down a rock crevice at Catoctin National Park in Thurmont, MD. The owners had taken the dog off leash when it saw some Turkey Vultures up on the trail. It took off running after the birds and fell into a crevice, about 30 feet down. We lowered a member who had to fend off a rather irate raccoon to access the dog. The dog was surprisingly unhurt by the fall, so using a dog harness from one of our team members who is also on the dog search team, raised the dog out of the crevice. The owners were fined for allowing their dog off leash. The Park Service split the fine with our team and purchased us 2 lifting harnesses and a snatch pole for future dog rescues.

Pete