Rescuing hoarded animals
(May 2007)
In this segment, accompanied by a rescued collie, UC Davis population ecologist Catherine Toft talks about how she and others in the UC Davis community have bound their lives to those of nearly six dozen needy dogs.
A long-time volunteer in local collie rescue and adoption programs, Toft became interested in the problem of animal hoarding in 2002, when she was asked to help officials in Montana. Since then she has been involved in a number of cases.
"Hoarding arises from mental illness," she says, "and is a tragedy for the dogs as well as the hoarder, who does not perceive that the animals' environment and condition have deteriorated."
Related news
- "New Leash on Life: Ecologist Catherine Toft creates a life-support system for ailing collies," UC Davis Web Spotlight, 1.24.06
- "Animal Hoarding," NewsWatch, 1.16.06 (Real One video)
- "Animal Hoarding II," NewsWatch, 1.23.06 (Real One video)
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Catherine Toft, evolution and ecology
Toft, a professor in the College of Biological Sciences, is an expert on population ecology — the complex relationships that bind plant and animal communities.
In 2002, when she was asked to help officials in Montana, customs agents had found a man and woman moving from Alaska to Arizona with a trailer carrying more than 170 animals — mostly collies.
Since then, Toft has acted as an adviser and expert court witness in other such situations.
Toft has spent her career studying behavioral ecology by focusing on sand-dune ecology on the north shore of Mono Lake and sand dunes associated with Great Basin lake beds and shorelines. She also has researched the mating systems and demography of bee flies and sand wasps.
Toft also has donated time and scholarship to parrot conservation, bird poaching and other avian conservation issues. She is at work on a book about wild parrots, to be published by the University of California Press in 2008.
Contact: Catherine Toft, Evolution and Ecology, (530) 752-7614, catoft@ucdavis.edu