This graph reflects the number of cases by year in the database. People frequently ask, "Is animal abuse increasing?" As you can see, the number is steadily increasing, however there are many possible explanations for this.
Increased awareness about animal cruelty leads to more cases being reported, however it does not necessarily mean that abuse is happening more frequently. Just as it is difficult to put a number on the actual occurrances of domestic violence, we have the same situation with animal cruelty cases. Thereare a great number of incidents that never get reported to authorities. While we hope this information is useful to you, it is critical that you understand thatan increase inthe number of reported incidents does not definitively mean that animal cruelty is on the rise.
Conditions for Use in Other Publications
These graphs may be used freely for your websites, reports, publications, etc. as long as the following conditions are met:
- You must always include a credit to Pet-Abuse.Com and the AARDAS project with each instance of the graphs
- If there is an additional note or disclaimer included with the graph, you must include the disclaimer or note with the graph. (The disclaimers are intended to further explain the data presented. Without the additional information they provide, the data could be misunderstood.)
- If you use these graphs on a website, please do NOT link directly to the graphs themselves. Instead, download the graph to your hard drive and upload them to your own webserver.