'Harry Potter' Fans Abandoning Pet Owls Following End Of Series

Animal sanctuaries in England are caring for hundreds of pet owls that were abandoned by their owners in the past year, a disturbing trend rescuers believe is linked to the end of the "Harry Potter" series.

"Harry Potter" fans enchanted with the boy wizard's owl sidekick Hedwig drove up demand for the birds during book and movie releases, the Mirror reports. But now that all book installments and film adaptations have been released, many owners are abandoning their pet owls into the wild, where they are unprepared to care for themselves.

"Before the films were out I had six owls, now it's 100. It’s all down to ­Harry Potter," Pam Toothill, a rescue workers at the Owlcenter sanctuary in Corwen, North Wales, told the paper. "People saw ­Harry’s owl in the movies and thought how cute and cuddly they looked. Now they are bored and fed-up with all the work involved looking after an owl."

Toothill said that in order to properly to care for owls, owners need to purchase a 20-ft. aviary, which can easily cost more than $1,000. Unfortunately, many unprepared pet owners have kept birds in apartments with limited space -- one owl Toothill rescued had been living in a man's bedroom.

"Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling has pleaded with fans to sponsor an owl that needs help rather than trying to take one in as a pet, according to the Suffolk Owl Sanctuary.

"If anybody has been influenced by my books to think an owl would be happiest shut in a small cage and kept in a house, I would like to take this opportunity to say as forcefully as I can, 'you are wrong,'" Rowling said.

But if past cases of fan-fueled animal crazes are any indication, people are often undeterred by such advice. When Disney released the live-action film '101 Dalmatians' in 1996, animals rights advocates worked tirelessly to educate prospective pet owners about the breed in order to prevent disastrous adoptions.

Unfortunately, the film's popularity fueled thousands of Dalmatian puppy adoptions that owners later regretted, and shelters were soon overflowing with unwanted dogs, The New York Times reported in 1997.

Years earlier, thousands of pet turtles met a similar fate after fans of the animated "Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles" TV series grew tired of their newly-adopted pets, according to Change.org. Many dumped their turtles in ponds or lakes, where they began to reproduce and outcompete indigenous species of turtles for food.

Pat Morrison, a columnist for the Los Angeles Times, wrote that L.A.-area animal shelters see a rise in pet abandonments whenever a popular animal movie is released. The movie "Babe" spurred unwise pig adoptions, and the movies "Beverly Hills Chihuahua" and "Marmaduke" caused similar upswings in failed adoptions for Chihuahas and Great Danes.

"Every time a cute-dog or cute-cat movie comes out, 5% of the box office take –- gross, not net; I have lived here long enough to know about Hollywood accounting –- should go to animal shelters to take care of these bought-and-abandoned "fad dogs," Morrison wrote.

From our partners

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Comments

[FracturedFairyTalesViaHP]

03:42 PM on 12/25/2012

Here in America owls are an endagered species and if you try to keep them as a pet you will be fined rather heavily...same goes with hawks, eagles, falcons and most of our native birds of prey. Although over the decades the Bald Eagle has rebounded in population.

[NancyY]

06:59 PM on 05/29/2012

I enjoy listening to the Great Horned Owls and the Screech Owls (they are so cute!) out where I live. If these owls can be taught to live on their own, they should just be released into the wild.

[NancyY]

06:57 PM on 05/29/2012

As I understand, raptors such as owls, eagles and hawks do NOT make good pets. It is unfortunate that so many individuals buy such animals on a whim and then dispose of them.

[FracturedFairyTalesViaHP]

03:44 PM on 12/25/2012

Well...they prefer live prey and bird seed does not work....

[GuyRC]

04:51 PM on 05/23/2012

You forgot that the cute tropical fish featured in Finding Nemo was nearly wiped out by the demand after the movie.

[Bklein153]

04:15 PM on 05/23/2012

Can you get an Owl in the US? Because I would love a Pygmy Owl and I have like 80 acres

[DebbyM]

11:01 PM on 12/28/2012

Don't do it!!! Let wild animals be wild. If you really loved any owl, you would do what is best for it and the best thing is to be wild. Buying a living creature because you think it's cute is selfish and awfully unkind.

[animal lover 01]

02:48 PM on 05/23/2012

i didn't know you could have these beautiful creatures as pets. as much as i would love to they belong free -nice example the parents took in letting the spoiled kids have them then give them up.

[coolhand66]

12:35 PM on 05/23/2012

baby owl are cute, just give them 120 day's you will have a bird that will rip your fase off.

keep owl free..

[hanspij]

10:45 AM on 05/23/2012

May you have owls in a privat home? Where i live you wil lose the owl and from the fine you can buy a good second hand car. That wil keep those stupid kids and even there more stupid parents away from keeping owls as pets.

[Flor D Turra]

09:34 AM on 05/23/2012

any more proof that Harry Potter fans are stupid kids?

[IrieMoon]

09:58 AM on 05/23/2012

The kids could not have adopted these animals without the parents....which means it's actually the parents who are the stupid ones.

[dayala]

09:23 AM on 05/23/2012

perhaps Ms. Rowling should set an example and use some of her profits and proceeds to right this wrong.

[Linda Rosario]

10:04 AM on 05/23/2012

How do you know she doesn't?

[Thimbles]

12:41 AM on 05/23/2012

I hope the owls will be okay =/. Shame on the people also for not considering everything when adopting the owls!

[Jane Jay]

12:39 AM on 05/23/2012

We are a throwaway society. Pathetic.

[barkingcat]

10:20 AM on 05/23/2012

Agreed.

And in a case of unintended consequences, the Japanese now have an infestation of raccoons, imported as pets in the wake of the popular cartoon "Rascal the Raccoon" from the late 1970s.

[whatsurbrain4]

08:16 PM on 05/22/2012

Just another example of how EASILY the media manipulates the general population. Sadly most parents use tv and `pop-in-a cute-dvd -or- video-game' to babysit their kids, just passing on the same bad habits. And before you give a knee-jerk response to this - THINK ABOUT IT!

[olitenup]

07:23 PM on 05/22/2012

Rowlings needs to step up to the plate and renounce this behavior by her fans and tell these people to stop it. Pets are not "trends". This is ridiculous.

[Pata Locs]

07:32 PM on 05/22/2012

Rowlings did. "If anybody has been influenced by my books to think an owl would be happiest shut in a small cage and kept in a house, I would like to take this opportunity to say as forcefully as I can, 'you are wrong,'" Rowling said.

[olitenup]

10:54 PM on 05/22/2012

Oh cool! Thanks!

[blurredmolly]

07:49 PM on 05/22/2012

yeah, blame the author. it's the idiot parents who can't say no to their kids.

[olitenup]

10:54 PM on 05/22/2012

Well I know that. The need was for her come forward very quickly, on behalf of the owls.

[Andrew Mumford]

04:13 PM on 05/23/2012

I agree wholeheartedly. Instead of parents telling their to think of the consequences of raising an animal they don't know about, giving them a plain "no", they give in to their kids' demands.

People act on impulse without thinking things through when buying animals after seeing them in movies.

[Talab]

07:22 PM on 05/22/2012

Owls need room to fly , they eat mice then rats then rabbits as they mature so they are expensive to feed , and then there are the heavy leather golves you need to protect yourself from their talons , Owls are nocturnal raptors so are active at night as well ... so much for "cute and cuddly"