New Orleans restauranteur and humane activist dead

Michael Lala, owner of the Old N'Awlins Cookery and founder of the Lala Foundation for Animals, stayed in the city when Katrina hit because he refused to leave his companion animals. He seemed to be doing fine and was talking about looking forward to re-opening the very popular eatery.

I learned today that he has died, presumably from heat and stress.

Lala was a cameraman for New Orleans' WDSU TV for many years. During the immediate aftermath of Hurricane Betsy in 1965, Lala and another WDSU staffer took a boat into St. Bernard Parish in order to film the devastation. The boat got hung, and Lala dropped into the canal, where all that could be seen for a while was his trademark hat, bobbing on the surface. When he surfaced, he and his partner got back in the boat and proceeded to rescue people from their houses.

It didn't suprise me that Lala stayed behind to care for his pets. It also didn't surprise me that the federal government didn't give a damn about pets and other non-humans (or humans, it seems). Making people drop their pets on the street or leave them behind to drown or starve is as good a definition of cruelty as I can think of.