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Alarmed by the wretched conditions at the pet shelter operated by Fukushima Prefecture, Jun Kawamata, a veterinarian, confronted Masatoshi Oshima, chief of the prefectural government’s food and sanitation hygiene division.
“What do you intend to do about such terrible conditions?” Kawamata asked Oshima with indignation.
At that time, Oshima, 61, was serving as head of the prefecture’s animal relief and protection task force.
Oshima told Kawamata that the prefecture planned to build another animal shelter to protect pets that had become homeless because of the nuclear crisis triggered by the Great East Japan Earthquake and tsunami of March 11, 2011. The prefectural government official said the new shelter would be composed of rows of cages placed on a tract of land owned by the prefecture. Weeds would be removed from the land to create space for the new shelter, according to the plan.
Kawamata bristled at the proposal, which would keep the animals outdoors.
“It’s totally unacceptable to leave them out in the open just when summer comes,” he said.
“If you say so. Find us a good place (to keep animals),” responded Oshima.
Kawamata sought the help of Seido Watanabe, a veterinarian friend of his. At that time, Watanabe was taking care of some 40 cats and dogs on behalf of the evacuees who owned them in a barn in Miharu, Fukushima Prefecture.
Watanabe himself was also looking for a new place to restart his practice.
Four days later, Kawamata received good news from Watanabe, who said he had secured a bankrupt pachinko parlor in Miharu for use as a new animal shelter.
A week later, major pet shop chain Kojima, at the request of Kawamata, sent a team of 70 vets and shop staffers to improve the conditions at the shelter. They started with the hygienic care and cleaning of the dogs.
They first washed the kennels and shampooed, groomed and trimmed the dogs. With their coats of hair clean and fluffy again, the dogs enjoyed walking around for the first time in a long while. They also replaced broken air conditioners and fixed the water heater.
The Kojima team also installed partitions between kennels to prevent dogs from fighting and hurting each other. Fights between dogs in neighboring kennels had broken out from time to time. In some cases, a dog bit off the tail of the dog next door.
The helpers sorted out a long list of problems related to the management of the shelter and created special space for dogs suffering from diseases. Thanks to their devoted efforts, the conditions at the shelter improved dramatically in just two days.
As he watched them work quietly but diligently for the well-being of the animals, Kenji Shishido, a member of the shelter staff since it was first set up, found it impossible to hold back tears.
Shishido felt some complex feelings, with a sense of relief that both the dogs and the shelter staff had been saved, mixed with a bitter sense of regret that he had failed to do enough to help the animals.
If the shelter had sought help from volunteers, the situation would have improved much sooner. But the prefectural government didn’t allow volunteers to work at the shelter and had gone so far as to keep its location a secret. Why did the prefecture keep the shelter so tightly closed off to help and support from outsiders?
Oshima explained that since the shelter was not staffed at night, there were concerns about possible foul play. He also said local residents could have launched a campaign against the shelter out of concerns about radiation if it had become known to the local communities that there were cats and dogs there that had been found homeless in off-limit areas around the disaster-stricken Fukushima No. 1 nuclear power plant.
But Shishido suspects that the prefectural government kept the shelter closed to outside scrutiny because it didn’t want the dismal conditions there to become known to the public.
Indeed, the local government was very nervous about possible leaks of information about the shelter, and banned Shishido and other staff members from taking pictures of the facility.
Since Kojima’s team began to work at the shelter, an increasing number of volunteers joined the staff to take care of the animals.
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