County Animal Response Teams

County Animal Response Teams (CART) are local networks of government, not-for-profit organizations, businesses, livestock producers and individual volunteers. CART will be the core resource for addressing many animal emergency issues in the state of Colorado. A typical CART mission statement might read:

“ The county (or community) animal response team program is a support network of animal and agricultural resources that are available for mitigation, planning, mobilization, response, and recovery related to emergency incidents within the county (community).”

A typical CART program might include some or all of the following participants:

• Emergency Management
• Animal control & law enforcement
• CSU Cooperative Extension
• Animal shelters & animal rescue groups
• Fairgrounds
• Livestock associations
• Veterinary professionals
• Kennels & pet groups
• Commercial livestock producers
• Community public health
• Fire and EMS
• County mapping
• Zoos and wildlife agencies
• Kennels and dog clubs
• Community businesses
• Brand Inspectors
• Concerned Individuals

Initial CART development efforts:

     In 2004, SART and it's steering committee partners presented a one-day CART development program in each of the nine homeland security regions in Colorado. Approximately 500 people attended these sessions, including presentations in:

 Colorado SART and our partners continue to provide training across Colorado in support of local animal emergency programs.

For more information about the CART development status in your area, please call Dr. Kevin Dennison at 303.539.7633

     The first step in the process is to secure acceptance by county emergency management. The second step is to secure the participation of key local stakeholders your community. SART and county emergency management will work together to identify a list of government agencies, not-for-profit organizations, animal industry and concerned citizens. If your county has not yet started the CART development process, the State Animal Response Team program will gladly come to your county and present a training program on animal emergency issues and the development of a CART program.

In some cases, CART programs may be regional, involving two or more counties or tribal nations.

CART Support:

     If your county has a developing CART program, CO SART is working to provide the following support resources:

     In addition SART is working with state and national partners to develop and deliver training opportunities at the local level through SART training, training delivered by partner agencies, and to develop packaged training programs that CART programs can deliver within their own community or region.