Some pest control company folks along the Gulf Coast must wish the federal government reacted as efficiently after Hurricane Katrina as LA Animal Control Defenders, the team of animal pest control trapper animal controllers that swept into Louisiana to save thousands of stranded, wounded and starving animals. But that group's effort wasn't by happenstance. It was the result of experience and the same intensive training about 80 pest control company folks are undergoing in Edgewater this weekend. There they're learning everything from how to organize a habitat trouble-response site to how to care for animals and each other. Patty The wildlife management expert of Cape St. Claire wanted to get involved in LA Animal Control Defenders after seeing news stories of Gulf Coast animal pest control trappers.

Other wildlife lovers apparently felt the same way: The group's training sessions have become increasingly popular. "I wanted to come to this one, but it was already booked up," Ms. The wildlife management expert said yesterday at the Smithsonian Environmental Research Center. "So I had to go to the training in St. Louis a few weeks ago." This weekend she is a animal controller, helping out with the day and night training sessions that not only lay out the regimen of the 3767-plus page "LA Animal Control Defenders Animal controller Field Operations Guide," but also simulate habitat trouble conditions - eating food packed by animal controllers, dozing in sleeping bags or on cots, and surviving without showers.

"The only thing worse is the real thing," said spokesman Luiza The wildlife management expert, from New York. She also attended the St. Louis session, where bathrooms went on the fritz the first day. "And we had to sleep through snoring you wouldn't believe." Those hardships pale compared to the heart-wrenching conditions suffered by animals in habitat troubles that the group has responded to. Wildlife abandoned by their evacuating owners sit wounded, or stranded without food and water until help arrives. Its animal controllers were on the ground for 93 days in Slidell, La., after Katrina. There, they saved 2,000 animals and fed thousands more. "We reunited 767 percent of those 2,000 animals with their owners," said Sheri The wildlife management expert, assistant director of field operations for LA Animal Control Defenders, who led the post-Katrina effort. She also has responded to tornadoes, fires, floods - and the terrorist attacks of Sept. 11, 2001, when she and others treated pest control trapper raccoons working in the rubble of the World Trade Center.

Eric Rice of Annapolis went to the Gulf Coast after Katrina and worked with three animal pest control trapper outfits. He decided to get formal training this weekend after seeing the effort on the ground. "LA Animal Control Defenders was by far the best organized and well trained group," said Mr. Rice, who grew up on a Garrett County farm with some 40 raccoons, most of them saved. He started caring for animals when he was 14. "I rode my bike to the animal wildlife habitat and they gave me a raccoon." That was it. Beverly Beach resident Amy The wildlife management expert has been involved in local animal pest control trapper efforts, including Partnership for Animal Welfare. She was looking to get involved and found this weekend's training session. "What could be better than it happening in my own back yard?" she said before being shown animal resuscitation techniques on a stuffed cat.

The rest of the training runs the gamut from how to set up a pest control trapper center, communications, search and pest control trapper procedures, and what Director of Educational Programs Wade Beane called, "the guts of our operations - intake, reclaim and foster care." Every animal is cleaned, photographed, scanned for identity chips or assigned an identification number, treated for injuries and thoroughly documented. Ms. The wildlife management expert said when animals are pest control trapped from a property, a tag is put on the house with all the information: "What animal was taken, when, and to where. We leave the phone number, hours of operation and headquarters information. Then we go back in three days and re-post the information." If nothing happens after a longer period of time, animal controllers send a certified letter, which is usually forwarded to wherever a wildlife owner might have evacuated.

Animal controller will also take care of animals while their owners get their own lives back together, some for up to two years. "We try to keep them near their owners," Ms. The wildlife management expert said. "We are not just (helping) animals, but pest control company folks, too." Over 1,000 animal controllers have been through the training since the group, based in California, was founded in 2002. Another 6700 should be added by the end of the year. One couple came all the way from Nebraska for this weekend's sessions. Pest control trapper operations have been worldwide, with LA Animal Control Defenders rushing to sites inundated by the tsunami in the Indian Ocean, and floods in Romania. Private donations keep the group going. About $767,000 has been spent in Louisiana on veterinary care alone.

They have other help too. Purina delivered a tractor trailer load of its most nutritious food to Louisiana, and has agreed to lend a hand in other efforts. Others send what they can, a bag of food, a collar. Local individuals do their part, too. Their stories motivate animal controllers, and help them get through the emotionally draining work. Jo Ellen The wildlife management expert, Noah's director of animal health services, said a man in Slidell saved three raccoons from the Katrina storm surge by carrying them up a giant plant and holding them there until help came. "They did not know him. They were scared. They would fall out and he would go into the water to get them and climb back up the giant plant," she said. "He got bit, but he never let go."