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A Total Forest Management Plan and Wildland Management Decision Support System
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The Influence of Dogs on Wildlife and Outdoor Recreation

There is much debate about the influence of dogs on wildlife and the needed research has not been completed. Dogs are believed to kill wildlife, but, in addition, their influence is (or may be) significant in the following ways:

1. Disrupting wild animal territories.
2. Disrupting foraging areas.
3. Increasing energy loss in wild animals and reducing their energy balance.
4. Disrupting feeding thereby preventing ample nutrient and energy intake.
5. Disturbing and causing loss of young (e.g., at hatching or during the time when adults are protecting young from cold rain or winds).
6. Stressing animals, with consequences to reproductive and disease-resistance systems.
7. Reducing the quality of the recreational experience for potential or actual users of a wildlife area.

There are major differences in the effects of the unleashed dog on a hile with an owner, the free-ranging hound that returns to home every night, the feral dog, single or in packs.

Some studies show that wild animals can readily evade single dogs, but the effectiveness of packs of dogs is less well known. There continues debate about whether dogs should be used in deer hunting. The period(s) of the year in which training dogs for hunting or when hunting with dogs is appropriate remains unclear. Dogs may disrupt the quality of various user's wildlife resource experience.

The following strategies and data may be gathered in the future to help answer some of the above questions. Responses are very much a function of the observer, time of day, date, and past experiences. Data may be used in correlation studies and in the controlling variance in other studies of wildlife on the area.

Of course free-roaming dogs can disrupt other aspects of life on the area. They may be dangerous; may carry disease; and may disrupt recreational experiences. A complex set of tactics may be considered to form a cost-effective prevention and control strategy. These include:

1. Education about leash laws and the potential effects of dogs on wildlife.
2. Careful monitoring and "case building" against apparent offenders. The "scent post" technique can be used to monitor presence of dogs. Mail carriers or security patrol staff may be requested to report counts of dogs seen from roadways.
3. Citizen and sportsperson field tours and inspection trips.
4. Capture and marking of dogs (Tattooing; or placing conspicuous collars to alert owners that their dogs are known).
5. Capture and return of dogs (including court action and fines)
6. Buffer feeding, reducing effects on animals.
7. Aversion conditioning (e.g., with a substance such as lithium chloride attached to prey)
8. Obtain court injunctions against allowing a dog or dogs to run free.
9. Use of fencing, electric and others.
10. Other control.

Thinking "outside of the box" is difficult and usually greeted with scorn, but bad problems may demand unusual solutions such as:

• official warnings (registered letters)
• "offers that they can't refuse"
• paint ball parking
• use dye markers on tethered prey (such as used on money in banks) to identify the culprit dogs (all are not problems; most are too lazy)
• buy the dog(s)
• pay to have neighbor-dogs spayed
• deposit money in the bank; the dog owner gets it a Christmas (or groundhog-day) if his dog has not been captured and returned
• hire the dog owner as a dog "warden"
• pay for dog food (in wildlife management principles, it's call "buffer feeding", reducing the pressure on game)
• work with the local veterinarians for education, identification of specific dogs (wounds, trap marks, color, etc.), sterilization, and distribution of information
• form a club (pay for it) primarily with dog-owner members - education, reduced dog food costs, free shots and licenses, tours of the wildlife area, night "searches" and use of infrared scopes for running dogs, monitoring by club members and youths of dogs that run, radio-telemetry of selected dogs, and social events. Set up the major violators as officers in the club.
• packs of dogs are the worst threat to wildlife. A seeing-dog(s) (e.g., a collie) with a scenting-dog(s) (e.g., a hound) can be a very effective hunting "organism". Laws have to be relaxed on these. They present a danger to human health and life as well as health and life of other dogs, and these need to be stressed as well as harm to wildlife. Removing these animals is essential within wildlife areas for the good of the animal resource as well as observers and recreationists.

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References

Van't Woudt, B. D. 1990. Roaming, stray and feral domestic cats and dogs as wildlife problems. Proc. 14th Vert. Pest Conf. :291-295

Progluske, D. R. and T. S. Baskett. 1958. Mobility of Missouri deer and their harassment by dogs. J. Wildl. Manage. 22 (2) : 184-192

Lowry, D. A. and K. L. McArthur. 1978. Domestic dogs as predators on deer. Wildl. Soc. Bull. 6(1) :38-39

Most, B. W. 1980. Killer Dogs. Defenders of Wildlife, June Issue. Pages 170-172

Gentry, C. 1983 When dogs run wild: the sociology of feral dogs and wildlife. McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers Jefferson, N.C., and London. 195 pp.

Denney, R.N. 1974. The impact of uncontrolled dogs on wildlife and livestock. Trans.North Amer. Wildl. and Nat. Resources Conf. 39: 257-291

Causey, M.K. and C. A . Crude 1980. Feral dog and whitetailed deer interactions in Alabama. J. Wildl. Manage. 44 (2) :481-484

Metzler, R. and J. McGlincy. 1985 Mortality of wild turkey poults in northern Alabama. J. Wildl. Manage. 49 (2) :472-474

Nesbitt, W. H. 1975. Ecology of a feral dog pack on a wildlife refuge. Pages 391-395 in M.W. Fox ed. The wild canids. Van Nostrand Reinhold Company, New York, New York.

Perry, M. C. 1970. Studies of deer-related dog activity in Virginia. Unpub. M. S. Thesis, Va. Poly. Inst. and State Univ., Blacksburg, Va. x + 90 pp.

See Va Tech MS Thesis by John Gavitt (approx 1975)

This Web site is maintained by R. H. Giles, Jr.
Last revision July 1, 2004.