From search coordinator Bonnie Folz:
<<Vivi Update – May 8, 2007
Just about 15 months after Vivi was carelessly lost while in the care of Delta Airlines, unfortunately, there is no new news to report on the search for Vivi. We have had no calls of confirmed sightings of Vivi in months now. We pray that someone has her and if they do, that they would be kind enough to let someone know, even if anonymously, in the form of a current photo. We just want to know that Vivi is okay.
There are still many fliers up in the various neighborhoods and the Vivi Team does go out now and again to replenish them.
So many good things have come about because of what happened to Vivi. Good people throughout the country are helping to save other animals' lives. Whether it be through petitions, networking, donations, forwarding information, prayers, requests for help with lost, injured or suffering animals as well as trying to help a special little girl, Madison, by reaching out to the Extreme Home Makeover crew to rebuild a home, thus giving her the care, therapy and treatments needed at home to assist her family and help Madison thrive and continue to improve. http://www.gopetition.com/online/12112.html
For all of these GOOD things being done, we say, “Thank you Vivi” and thanks to all of you who are out there making a difference.
A group of Vivi volunteers, and others offering to help, have come together to pursue the airline safety issues that are needed to be put in place, and/or enforce those requirements that are already in place, for transporting pets via the airlines. We are calling this the “Vivi Crusade.”
There is much needed information to be gathered, in order to present any changes that need to be made, whether it is amending a bill or creating a new one.
We are putting a web site together so that people can stay up to date on what the Vivi Crusade group is doing and what is needed. We are in immediate need of a web host for this web site and are hoping that someone may know of a service that would donate the web-hosting or provide a discount to do so as we are in need of funding to get this new initiative going. Anyone interested in donating the web-hosting, please contact me at Pawsativebf@aol.com or by cell 917-626-1374.
I contacted Barbara Listenik who, through the unfortunate incident with Delta losing her dog Boris back in 1996, was the driving force behind the Safe Air Travel for Animals Act, also known as the Boris Bill. Barbara and a few other folks that helped get the Boris Bill passed have offered to join the Vivi Crusade. With Barbara’s guidance, who has “been there-done that,” and that of Sue Weiss of the Long Island Coalition of Dog Fanciers, the Vivi Crusade is moving in the right direction.
We’ve come to find that through the “Boris Bill”, training information MUST be given to all airline employees in the safe handling of all pets in their care. We do not know if this is being done. If anyone can provide us with training material that is being used to train airline employees and handlers, please forward the information to me.
We have put together a “Vivi Crusade Questionnaire” which asks for information of incidents that travelers have had transporting their pets via the airlines, even if the incident was not reported.
It has also come to our attention, that many more incidents of pets being lost somewhere within the airlines/airports, are NOT being reported as the pet may have been found in another airport or another part of the airport, hours later. These poor lost pets somehow get re-routed onto other flights, or are never listed as being on ANY flight to begin with. There is no logged info about these pets making it a nightmare for them to be tracked when lost. Only after hours of worry for the owners and some scrambling of airline employees, is the animal found and reunited with the owner with NO explanation what so ever from the airlines on what happened to the animal. It seems that since the animal has been found, no report is written up and it does not get recorded as a lost pet, which is exactly what it was for that period of time. With no reporting of the temporarily lost animal, it does not get reported to the Consumer Protection Division of the Department of Transportation, which the airlines are required to do, under the Safe Travel for Animals Act. These complaints are then published in its Air Travel Consumer Report http://airconsumer.ost.dot.gov/reports/ The complaints list the ‘Description of the Incident’, the ‘Description of Cause of the Incident’ and the ‘Description of Any Corrective Action’ taken by the airlines. With these lost and found incidents not being reported, the airline is not held responsible to have any corrective actions put into place. So this can happen to another animal at any time.
We know for a fact that incidents, such as these, go unreported by the airlines if they are not formally reported by the animal’s owner. Take the story of Faith, the two legged dog, that was lost for almost 10 hours while in American Airlines care this past February, this incident was never listed with the Department of Transportation. This is only one of the many we have heard of, with this type of “lost” incident happening, but unless there is some type of reporting/record of the incident, we don not have a leg to stand on and cannot get the changes made. This is why the gathering of information with the Vivi Crusade Questionnaire is so very important.
Another finding we've come across with these lost animals, as you can see from the Air Consumer Reports, is that the airlines claim the crates being used to transport the animal seem to be the cause of the animals getting lost. Whether it is a faulty crate door mechanism or the crate not being put together securely. I do believe that this may be the case in some incidences but know that there was nothing wrong with the spring lock door on Vivi's crate when it was handed over to Delta, however, when Vivi's crate was returned days later, the spring mechanism on the door was clearly broken. To me, this faulty crate excuse seems to be an easy out. Having a crate manufacturer that can design a crate better suited to contain an animal, may prove to be very helpful in safely transporting them.
The "Vivi Crusade Questionnaire" will be distributed as soon as we have the web site up and running. If anyone would like a copy of the "Vivi Crusade Questionnaire" sooner or knows of someone that would like a copy, please contact me at Pawsativebf@aol.com
We appreciate all of your help compiling this information to make these changes.
Keeping the faith and making a difference.
Bonnie Folz>>
