“We’re looking for Lottie Mae Lane,” we asked three Eagle Lake residents sitting on bar stools. “We’re doing a story about the flood and its effects on animals. We hear that a man on Lottie Mae has about 20 goats getting picked up today.”

“Forget about the animals, what about the people?” one asked.

It happened almost two weeks ago when the Mississippi River flood of 2011 was still mostly predictions and warnings.

The difference — we didn’t tell them — is that people have the free will to sit at bar stools in the middle of the afternoon bemoaning the impending water rise instead of packing up and shipping out. It’s the animals whose well being in contingent on the caring of the people.

Later that day, Vicksburg-Warren Humane Society Director Georgia Lynn and five others spent hours corralling 15 goats and, somehow, coaxing them down a chute and into the back of a waiting trailer. The goats brought to 38 the number of animals picked up that day by just the humane society as efforts to secure shelters for displaced pets and animals intensified.

The next day, Lynn said she was headed back toward Eagle Lake to pick up chickens. Some animals went to Silver Creek Riding Club in Bovina, while others went to shelters in the area and to the already-full Humane Society off of U.S. 61 South.

At PAWS Rescue, a no-kill shelter run out of volunteers’ homes, the task was equally as difficult. Leigh Conerly, president of PAWS, fielded constant phone calls, the most dire coming from the City of Vicksburg Animal Shelter. The facility on Mill Street off of North Washington sits in the path of the rising waters.

More than 30 animals were at the shelter 10 days ago. On Wednesday, through a Facebook post, Conerly reported that every animal from the city shelter had been picked up. Food donations to PAWS are increasing.

With a river crest forecast for Thursday and months of waiting for the water to recede, the work is not finished. Lynn said this time of year is when “irresponsible pet owners” who fail to get pets spayed or neutered clog the humane society with litters.

It’s hard to speak for animals — even harder to speak to them — but it is clear that thank-yous need to go out to Lynn, Conerly and all the volunteers who realized that the only hope to save displaced animals is us.

So, from the animals: Thanks.