Is your dog killing our wildlife?

Many people enjoy walking with their dogs in natural areas, and the Chard Nature Reserve is no exception. The owners enjoy seeing their pets roam freely off the leash and scenting the area and getting some fresh air and exercise.

However the disturbance to the wildlife is considerable. Every day scores and scores of dogs are brought to the reserve in cars or are walked from nearby homes. Most of the time they are allowed to run freely out of control. This often interferes with other dog walkers and causes friction.

Dogs are predators by nature. Although they may not always be successful in killing the potential prey living in or near the reserve they directly and indirectly add to the diminishing wildlife by exhausting the animals and birds by placing them under a lot of stress.

It takes a great deal of energy to escape from a fit well fed and pampered  pet dog and  especially at a time when wildlife are suffering from harsh winter weather conditions and the resulting malnutrition. They are barely surviving and are unable to repeatedly expend energy avoiding the attentions of the many dogs.

The expenditure of this energy to escape the attentions of your dog will kill the animal or weaken it to the point when it can easily be killed by other predators.

Thus whilst the dog and its owner having enjoyed the chase, consider its OK if the prey escapes and appears unharmed, but in reality this behaviour has contributed to the animal’s death.

Birds are unable to store fat on their bodies as we do, they need to eat every day to survive. Most of their energy in sub zero temperatures is used to keep warm.

One has to take into account just how many dogs are in the reserve, off the leash and roaming freely, the owners unconcerned at their predatory behaviour. I would say that over 90% of the dogs are off the leash from my experience.

I have and those working and using the reserve have witnessed many attacks by dogs on deer, ducks, wild fowl, squirrels and animals in the Reserve. The owners are when questioned about the behaviour of the animals in their charge are unconcerned and think that they are entitled to allow their dog to do just that. Most of them are defensive and hostile and complain about their "rights" being denied.

Examples

Feeding the waterfowl one December day 2010, the temperature was -5 some of the birds had difficulty in reaching me to get the grain, walking slowly towards me instead of flying, a sure sign that they were conserving what little energy they had. Greedily picking up the grain thrown to them they were attacked by a dog who gave chase to them and the teeth missed one duck by inches.

I called out to the owner to control his dog and to put it on a lead. The owner ignored this.

I caught up with the owner at the car park and said to him that I hope he had enjoyed his walk as the ducks had not. I added that I was concerned at his dog’s behaviour. He replied that I should not be concerned as his wife carefully explained to me “that the dog was bred to hunt birds and would only catch it and bring back alive ”!?  I was taken aback by this stupidity and ignorance. Presumably the dog would just give it a kiss and let it go?

Another particular recent incident speaks volumes. I encountered a dog owner watching his pet killing a mole, the dog was biting and tossing the mole in the air whilst the owner watched. I approached the dog owner who laughed and said his dog had caught a mole and he could not take it away from the dog. I intervened and prevented the animal from any further injury. I reminded the owner that it was a nature reserve and animals had some sort of sanctuary here. He replied "moles were vermin and needed killing".

Two days later I found the same owner with his dog digging up fresh mole hills. Here is a case where the dog owner considers that it is acceptable to act this way.  It is not.

Whist there may be many moles in the reserve it is not the prerogative of dog owners to kill them for fun.

I would plead with all dog owners to control their pets in the reserve especially in this hard winter weather, what wild life is surviving is doing so on the brink. What may seem to you a harmless chase. And may appear a little fun for your darling pooch will be death to the bird or animal.

Even allowing them to bark or chase the ducks, coots and moorhens who are suffering will add to their demise

If you want to feed the ducks etc please  bring brown whole meal bread , there is little sustenance in white bread for them, even better bring some corn, wheat, seeds and grain and leave your dog some distance away.

In the Spring

A pregnant animal or their young do not have the reserves to cope with the daily harassment from the local dogs. Nesting birds and wildfowl will abandon the nest and eggs if discovered and chased by a dog.

Wild flower Meadows.

Wild life flower meadows only exist if the soil remains free of high nitrogen levels. Or put another way no manure is placed in the soil. If added this will encourage coarser grasses and these will out compete the wonderful wild flowers we all love to see. Result no flowers.

So if you are squeamish skip the next paragraph.

There are about 6.8 million dog owners in the UK and dog poo adds considerable nitrogen to soil levels.  dog poo contain pathogens harmful to us and to wildlife it also adds a great deal of nitrogen to the soil. The population of Chard is about 11,700 and if 20% are dog owners we have at least 2000 dogs at large, if only 10% visit the Reserve daily that is 200 dogs which in turn leave a huge amount of excrement in the meadows even though many owners use the bins provided there are always those who will ignore the bins.

If you see any dog aggravation please report it to the Countryside Ranger.

In case you are wondering, I too walk a dog, a Springer spaniel. He is a great dog, but needs to be controlled and I would never take him into a place such as  a Nature Reserve as he is bred to stalk birds.

This opinion  expressed here is independent of any other organisation connected with this reserve.