Bobcat HART has been doing fundraising for respirators and is planning another fundraiser to sell puppy chow. They are also working toward a summer trip to Africa, where they will study big cats
The Bobcat Human Animal Relationship Team is doing more than just playing with puppies and pigs, Samuel Moss, founder of Bobcat HART, said.
Moss said Bobcat HART, a new organization on campus, has started several fundraisers and is in the process of planning a trip to Africa in the summer.
“What we find is a lot of people come to meetings because they miss their animals,” Samuel Moss, founder of Bobcat HART or Human Animal Relationship Team, said. “So (students) get their fill of pet love.”
About a month ago, Moss said he and his environmental class decided they wanted to create Bobcat HART to focus on caring for animals and would also help local shelters and wildlife centers as much as possible. The group meets every Sunday at Emeriti Park.
Moss, a lecturer of environmental health in the College of Health Sciences and Professions, said Bobcat HART has three visions: international, national and local.
“The international vision is to develop a global health course to take students to Africa to interact and participate in a research group about big cats,” Moss said. “Our national vision is that we want to have one of the more robust disaster animal response student chapters in the country.”
Moss said Bobcat HART’s local vision is to support local animal relations through fundraisers, and Bobcat HART is currently working on a fundraiser for animal respirators, where they hope to raise about $1,500.
“Most pets die in house fires," Moss said. "You realize, when there’s a fire, it’s not the fire that kills you — it’s the smoke. When firefighters respond, they do not have equipment to resuscitate pets, so most of the pets end up dying. A lot of the firefighters struggle to do something about this, and they break things apart to try to find a way to resuscitate these animals with oxygen.”
Ben Arnold, a junior studying environmental biology, said he joined because students encounter animals everyday sometimes without realizing.
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“Everyday we live in the same environment as animals,” Arnold said. “And I feel like we should take initiative to protect them and bond with them just like we do with other people.”
President Kate Hermanowski, a sophomore studying environmental biology, said Bobcat HART’s meetings are lively and almost always have animals.
“It important to educate people on animal health, and animals are a big part of the environment,” Hermanowski said. “When they’re affected, we’re affected too.”
Moss said Bobcat HART is planning a “Pop Art Puppies” event, in which the group will go to Coolville Elementary and interact with kids, who will make artwork of dogs. The artwork will be sold in an auction.
“It’s a very low socioeconomic area, very depressed,” Moss said. “And for college kids to go spend time with them, those kids think that’s the most wonderful thing ever.”
Casey Pitcock, a sophomore studying communication studies, said this group can really benefit Athens and the environment.
“At the end of the day you know you’re doing something that you love, that the animals will appreciate (and) that the owners of the animals will appreciate,” Pitcock said. “I just think that this group can really bring a lot of connections throughout life.”
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