BALTIMORE -- The Maryland Zoo in Baltimore plans to raise funds to help zoos impacted by Hurricane Katrina. Additionally, many Marylanders hope to come to the aid of stray animals.

According to zoo officials, as many as four Louisiana zoos, one Mississippi zoo and two Alabama zoos may need help.

As a result, the Maryland Zoo plans to contribute all proceeds from a new recycling program to the zoos' hurricane relief funds.

The zoo said the funds will come from the recycling of specially-marked cans of Diet Coke brought to the Baltimore campus between September and December.

Zoo officials said they plan to team with the Coca-Cola Co. to distribute throughout Metropolitan Baltimore more than 1 million 12-ounce cans of Diet Coke that offer one free child's admission. The zoo said visitors can bring those soda cans to the zoo for recycling collection.

Allan Schwartz, the cofounder of Days End Farm Horse Rescue, is headed to the hurricane-ravaged Gulf Coast with a trailer full of supplies to help rescue stray pets and farm animals.

Schwartz is one of a number of Humane Society volunteers heading to the area.

"Part of the problem is that if they get loose during the disaster, they lose all their sense. they can't sense where their home is, so when they get lost, they can't find their way back home," Schwartz said. "It's important to get them out of there as soon as possible."

Anne Culver is the director of disaster services for the national Humane Society.

"Our strategy now is to work with the authorities and go in there and try to help the people who have been separated from their pets," Culver said.

"If you can take somebody who has lost everything they've owned and reunite them with their pet, it gives them a sense of security, a sense of happiness," Schwartz said. "For that child that's just lost that comfort, everything that they know, to be reunited with their dog or their cat, it just brings comfort to them."

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