Symposium on Animal Hoarding Held in Bucks County

Folks from several local and state agencies gathered in Bucks County to learn about the topic of animal hoarding.

KYW's Hadas Kuznits reports that Bucks County commissioner Diane Marseglia explains why it was important to organize a symposium on animal hoarding:

"We've been finding that it is a growing issue."

Kuznits: "What is the definition of an animal hoarder?"

"There is no specific diagnosis but it certainly happens when people and the animals are not living in conditions that are healthy."

She says animal hoarding is a problem that spans several agencies:

"In many of these situations there are fire code violations. The SPCA can come in but the code enforcement or the fire marshal may not be able to come in."

And she says mainstream psychologists seem to be on the threshold of naming animal hoarding as a new disorder:

"The DSM5 -- that's the Diagnostic Statistical Manual that tells all of the different mental health disorders.  Animal hoarding is not in there right now, but they are developing volume 5 and it's expected that it will be a diagnosis in there."