LOS ANGELES — Linda Bruno called her Pennsylvania cat rescue the land of milk and tuna. It thrived for years as people sent pets they couldn't care for from hundreds of miles away — unaware it was a death
camp for cats.
Investigators who raided the place two years ago found killing rooms, mass graves so thick they couldn't take a step without walking on cat bones and a stunning statistic: Bruno had taken in over 7,000 cats in the previous 14 months, but only found homes for 23.
In doing so, she had become a statistic herself, one of an increasing number of self-proclaimed rescuers who have become animal hoarders running legal and often nonprofit charities.
...
"When I first started looking into this 20 years ago, fewer than 5 percent would have fit that description," Lockwood said. Hoarding itself is not a crime in most states, but cruelty is and both can start around the same time — when one more animal becomes one too many. Rescuers take in rejected, abandoned, abused or stray pets. Some come from municipal shelters as they are about to be euthanized.
It remains a mystery how someone goes from trying to rescue animals to stockpiling them in inhumane conditions without food, water or basic care. No single trigger has been found, but dementia, addiction, attachment disorder, obsessive-compulsive disorder and other psychological problems are often blamed.
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