The Japan Animal Rescue Shelter has undertaken several clandestine and dangerous trips into the exclusion zone to rescue 200 dogs and cats from the now off-limits towns around the power plant.

"It's like a mission," explains Sugano Hoso, who runs the shelter with her husband. "And as a human being — since people have been evacuated from there, why do these dogs have to be left there?"

(READ – or listen to — the story at NPR News)