A Middletown woman has a date in muncipal court next month on disorderly persons charges that she abandoned three gerbils and a hamster in the woods, the Asbury Park Press reports.
If found guilty, she faces up to $8,000 in fines, the newspaper says.
Wendy Fiolek, 38, was charged with animal abandonment and failure to provide sustenance and shelter to the creatures, which had been household pets, said Victor “Buddy” Amato, chief of police for the Monmouth County Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals.
Amato said the small rodents had been put in a cardboard box and left in the woods by Sleepy Hollow Road.
“A youngster walking a dog heard them scratching and that’s how they were found,” Amato said. A shipping invoice with Fiolek’s address was also found inside the box.
Amato said when he first questioned her about the rodents, she said her daughter had previously owned gerbils, but they had been given to “a good home.”
He said she ultimately admitted leaving the animals in the box because her daughter didn’t take care of them.
That’s a gerbil shown above.
