Harry Potter fans asked to stop leaving tributes for house elf Dobby

Environmental officials have requested that people stop bringing socks and other items that now litter a beach in Wales

Fans of JK Rowling’s Harry Potter series have been accused of creating an environmental hazard after hundreds of people left socks in honor of the house elf Dobby at a memorial on the Freshwater West beach in Pembrokeshire, Wales. 

The memorial is located at the spot where the film adaptation of ‘Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1’ shows Dobby’s death in Harry’s arms, in which Dobby described the expansive beach as a “beautiful place to be with friends.”

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Since the movie’s release in 2010, fans have been visiting the memorial to leave items in honor of the house elf, the most common being socks – a reference to a scene in which Dobby’s owner, Lucious Malfoy, was tricked by Harry into giving the house elf a sock, which freed him from his indentured servitude. Dobby wore the sock until his death.

However, the problem is that fans were leaving so many socks at the beach that environmental officials from the conservation charity National Trust Wales became concerned about the impact on the environment and conducted an eight-month review.

Last week, National Trust Wales published its conclusions, ultimately deciding to allow the memorial to remain. The group warned, however, that fans should only take photos and refrain from leaving tributes to the house elf, explaining that “items like socks, trinkets and paint chips from painted pebbles could enter the marine environment and food chain and put wildlife at risk.”

The trust says its decision was based on a survey of over 5,000 people who were asked to weigh in on the future of the beach, which is reportedly visited by 75,000 people each year.