Dear Hampshire County pet owners: I am Ramona Sirois, 10 years old, and I want to talk to you about an issue in our community and worldwide: animal abandonment. You can help prevent it! Animal abandonment is when a pet owner stops caring for an outdoor pet or releases an indoor pet into the wild. The owner does this because they cannot care for the pet, do not want them, or think the pet will be better off in the wild. This is a problem for the pets and the habitat they are released into.
Animal abandonment is an issue for a number of reasons. One reason is that a lot of pets cannot survive without human care once they are used to it. Dogs and cats without experience hunting can struggle to get enough food on their own. Abandoned rodents, such as pet mice, rats and guinea pigs, can get into houses and farms where the humans living there try to get rid of them.
Another reason that animal abandonment is a negative action is that it can hurt the ecosystem. Hunting pets such as cats and snakes can be new to the environment they are released into, and the animals there do not know to be afraid of them. This can lead to the pets hurting the population of prey animals in the area. Other pets, such as fish, can grow to be much bigger than normal in the wild and become an invasive nuisance. Goldfish are a huge problem in habitats where they have been released.
So, what can you do about this issue? For starters, if you need to get rid of a pet, do not abandon it. If the pet is very sick, the veterinarian can humanely put it down. Otherwise, you should bring your pet to an animal shelter, where they can let someone else who wants it adopt it. Two local animal shelters are Westfield Regional and Dakin Humane Society. If you are looking to get a new pet, make sure you have the time and resources you need to care for it. If you find a stray pet, check for collar tags and microchips. Someone might have lost it! Ask around your neighborhood. If not, bring the pet to an animal shelter. They will check to make sure the pet is not sick. Afterwards, you can adopt the pet or let someone else adopt it. Thank you for reading this. I hope you take the issue of animal abandonment into consideration in your pet ownership.
Ramona L. Sirois
Amherst