Characteristics of convicted animal hoarders in New South Wales Australia

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As a veterinarian I encounter people who accumulate animals. Some of these people become overwhelmed, and some persist in accumulating animals despite being unable to care for those that they already have. I was familiar with stereotypes of animal hoarders in the media, but this belies my lived experience that it can be challenging to spot an animal hoarder. We undertook a retrospective study of convictions for animal-hoarding related offences because these are on the public record. Animal hoarding is heartbreaking. Animals often suffer terribly, frequently (as we found in our study) without necessary veterinary care. These are truly heartbreaking situations as neither the animals nor the humans are better off for this relationship. The homes of these persons are often inhospitable, and present a local environmental risk because of disruption to utilities, accumulation of rubbish, biological hazards and behaviour of animals that may be distressed or forced to fend for themselves. This study contributes to a body of work aimed at trying to understand animal hoarding, and address it.

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