next message in archive
next message in thread
previous message in archive
previous message in thread
Index of Subjects
the waste from our companion animals, whose population is determined
On 4/19/2011 10:28 AM, Flora Johnson wrote:
> Much as I'd love to think that my dog is doing the wilderness a favor by
> defecating there, sadly this does not appear to be the case.
* I'll make the counter arguments to these points, though I'm not sure
I'll refute them, and I'm not familiar with whatever literature there
may be on this subject. One thing about letting dogs defecate in natural
habitats is that this will benefit only communities that can absorb
large quantities of nutrients (mostly rural forests, with trees that can
soak up an almost unlimited quantity of nutrients with increased growth)
- many distinctively biodiverse habitats maintain their character only
when they're in a low nutrient state, and Dogs shouldn't be encouraged
to defecate there. The only poop-and-scoop I do is in a
"nutrient-depletion glade" on our land, where I'm trying to maintain
early-successional conditions.
> 1. Because my dog lives in close association with me, her feces may and
> very likely do contain contaminants not routinely present in the feces
> of resident wildlife. These include antibiotics and other medications,
> potentially harmful strains of E. coli, and other disease-causing
> organisms that are present in the human environment but not necessarily
> in the wild.
* but if these aren't potential pathogens of wild species, then a mature
soil, vegetation, and invertebrate fauna will deal with them more
completely than the biota of a more degraded site would.
> 2. Although it's true that an ecosystem can absorb and even benefit from
> animal waste, this ability is limited. The quantity of wildlife an
> ecosystem can support is also limited, so one can hope that a
> functioning ecosystem will be able to process and the waste products
> produced by the wildlife it supports. This becomes increasingly less
> likely once we start to add the waste from our companion animals, whose
> population is determined by us rather than by the carrying capacity of
> the local ecosystem.
* as above, encouraging nutrient supplementation is only appropriate in
habitats that have been degraded by anthropogenic removal of nutrients
(by logging, fishing, etc.).
> 3. Waste products don't necessarily stay where they were deposited. On
> the contrary, in environments where there has been a lot of human
> activity, materials deposited on the soil surface often are washed way
> by the first rain, ending up in local waterways. This means that even if
> your dog is defecating in an ecosystem so degraded that it needs the
> nutrients, there is no guarantee that those nutrients, along with
> anything else in the dog's feces, won't end up where they're not needed
> -- namely, in the nearest stream, pond, lake, or shoreline area. In
> recent years, many outbreaks of E. coli or excessive nitrogen in
> waterways have been blamed partly or entirely on dog waste.
* but I wonder if these aren't from feces deposited along roads where
such a large majority of them are (I'll be glad to nominate a certain
street in our village)? There's very much less runoff from a forest than
from human-modified habitats.
> 4. Although I do everything I can to keep my dog healthy, it's still
> possible that her feces might contain parasites or diseases that could
> be transmitted to other people's dogs or even, in some cases, to humans
> and other animals. Even aside from the potential effects on wildlife and
> the environment, as a responsible pet owner I should not take
> unnecessary chances with the health of other people's dogs, their
> children, or their horses. Nor do I want other dog owners leaving their
> dogs' feces where my dog, child, or horse might come into contact with them.
* again this would be mostly along roads, and from Dogs on leashes (I
realize that this thread started with Dogs along a marked trail). Also,
this kind of infection would only obtain in the spring and fall, since
in the winter freezing will kill pathogens, and in the summer Insects
will quickly process the resource.
> For purposes of the straw poll, you can put me down as being in favor of
> allowing dogs on trails as long as they are accompanied by a responsible
> owner. To me this means an owner who cleans up after the dog and is able
> to keep the dog on the trail and prevent the dog from bothering either
> wildlife or humans who would prefer not to interact with a dog. Such an
> owner would use a leash if in the slightest doubt about whether the dog
> will obey commands.
* I'll say that I've rarely been out along a trail of this kind with a
Dog, and my experience is with Dogs either along village streets or on
our land or Crown or County Forests, away from marked trails or other
features.
fred schueler
------------------------------------------------------------
Frederick W. Schueler & Aleta Karstad
Bishops Mills Natural History Centre - http://pinicola.ca/bmnhc.htm
now in the field on the Thirty Years Later Expedition -
http://fragileinheritance.org/projects/thirty/thirtyintro.htm
Daily Paintings - http://karstaddailypaintings.blogspot.com/
RR#2 Bishops Mills, Ontario, Canada K0G 1T0
on the Smiths Falls Limestone Plain 44* 52'N 75* 42'W
(613)258-3107 <bckcdb at istar.ca> http://pinicola.ca/
------------------------------------------------------------
------------------------------------------------------------
next message in archive
next message in thread
previous message in archive
previous message in thread
Index of Subjects