Animal Hoarding

may need lots more info

Animal hoarders may present themselves as having ‘rescued’ animals, when often they have trapped or imprisoned them. These people are often well known to genuine local representatives of re-homing charities, who will have nothing to do with them. Indeed animal hoarders may already be the subject of local authority prosecutions for welfare or nuisance violations.

Identifying Animal Hoarding

The definition of Animal Hoarding provided by HARC [Hoarding of Animals Research Consortium] and incorporated into Illinois Law is:

• More than the typical number of companion animals.
• Inability to provide even minimal standards of nutrition, sanitation, shelter, and veterinary care, with this neglect often resulting in starvation, illness, and death.
• Denial of the inability to provide this minimum care and the impact of that failure on the animals, the household, and human occupants of the dwelling.

It might be expected that animal hoarders would not seek veterinary intervention for their animals. However, animal hoarders may exhibit a fundamental lack of insight into the conditions in which the animals are kept, so that they will regularly ask for medical or behavioural help. In some cases this may also be an attempt to maintain a degree of respectability as a defence against future prosecution. It is essential that veterinary surgeons and behaviourists do not fall into unwittingly supporting or defending the actions of clients who are Animal Hoarders. This behaviour is easily passed off as eccentric, but it impacts the health and welfare of the animals, the owner, and neighbours. HARC is seeking recognition of Animal Hoarding as a form of mental illness.