Maine has hundreds of animal hoarders.
Carol Murphy of New Sharon could be one of them. She was arrested last year after investigators found 60 inhumanely kept animals on her property. She fits the pattern exhibited by people who warehouse animals and, for whatever reason, do not provide adequate care.
On Friday, Murphy was convicted on one cruelty-to-animals charge and four charges of having possession of animals without permits, including a Quaker parrot, peacock, pygmy hedgehog and Russian tortoises. The jury spent 30 minutes in deliberation after hearing testimony about inadequate shelter, food and medical attention. Several of Murphy’s animals were found dead from starvation, dehydration or hypothermia.
This 60-year-old woman, according to Norma Worley, director of the Maine Animal Welfare Program, fits the hoarder profile.
The behavior of animal hoarders, formerly known as “animal collectors,” can go undetected for years, according to the Humane Society of the United States. And their presence is much more common than people would believe.
Maine has no specific law prohibiting animal hoarding, Worley said, but relies on animal cruelty laws to prosecute these cases. She would like to see that change.
According to Worley, her department has submitted a proposed bill creating a civil anti-hoarding law defining what an animal hoarder is and setting more sentencing guidelines for judges.
The legislation proposes that a “companion animal hoarder” be defined as a person who possesses a large number of companion animals; fails to or is unable to provide good food, drinkable water, adequate shelter, veterinary care when needed and humane care and treatment; keeps the companion animals in a severely overcrowded environment; and displays an inability to recognize or understand the nature of the animals’ living conditions or has a reckless disregard for them
The sentencing guidelines include psychological evaluations for animal hoarders and lifetime bans on owning animals.
“Maine has hundreds of hoarders now,” Worley said. “Most people look upon them as the little old lady that lives on the corner that has 80 cats. She’s lived there for 50 years and has the cats and doesn’t bother anyone. People just think she’s a little odd, a little eccentric but forget the conditions the cats are living in and the conditions she’s living in.”
Seventy-six percent of animal hoarders are women, with 46 percent of them 60 or older, said Kate Pullen, director of animal sheltering for the Humane Society of the United States, in an interview last year.
Hoarders tend to be adamantly opposed to giving up any of their animals even when it is obvious to a reasonable person that those animals are suffering from a lack of veterinary attention, clean surroundings or proper nutrition, Pullen said.
Animal welfare advocates see the number of animal hoarding cases increasing because of a newly recognized link between hoarding behavior and mental illness, she said.
The public is coming forward more to report animal neglect because people are starting to see that “we’re not trying to hurt these people when we take these animals away,” Pullen said.
Hoarding had been seen as an animal control problem, but it’s a behavior, said Pullen.
The behavior is not intentional, even though it can be cruel, said Pullen. Hoarders generally fail to recognize or refuse to acknowledge when their animals become victims of gross neglect, she explained.
Animal hoarders can see themselves as saviors or martyrs because they don’t want to see animals euthanized, but in many cases, Pullen said, animals would be better off being euthanized than suffering inhumane treatment.
Hoarders also tend to keep their animals indoors and move around a lot from veterinarian to veterinarian for care, but then don’t follow through with prescribed treatments, said Pullen. And they often make excuses for not feeding animals, such as saying they or their helpers are sick. “These people don’t realize what they’re doing.”
They don’t see the feces on the floor or the dead animals. They walk right over them, she said.
Pullen said a hoarder could have 400 cats and 100 of them dead, and they wouldn’t see the problem.
Now that the scope of the problem is starting to gain recognition, veterinarians are taking a more active role in trying to help people they believe could be animal hoarders.
It isn’t the number of animals a person has, Pullen said. It’s the animals not being cared for and the animals that are injured through lack of treatment, food and water.
“We need to remove the animals and we need to help the person,” Pullen said.
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