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Patrick Murphy
I have had three dogs in my life (click here for more about them, and letters in the Boulder Camera) and I love dogs. There seems to be a belief that it is impossible to simultaneously love dogs and be aware of their negative impacts. The negative impacts of dogs cannot be ignored and must be documented and mitigated. I believe that dogs off-leash in high utilization native areas is destructive, non-passive recreation. The accumulation of dog excrement, damage to vegetation and promotion of weed invasion, and the negative impacts on people and wildlife that are sensitive to dogs, make dog off-leash areas incompatible with more heavily utilized wildland management areas. Dog parks are the only place where dogs off-leash should be allowed on high utilization public lands. These parks are an excellent alternative, but will require considerable maintenance.
Impacts- (Scroll down for more information)
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I apologize for the many broken links below. I should have saved the pages to my own web site then linked to them.
I have prepared a more formal listing of references related to dog impacts with many articles available as Adobe .pdf files that are on my own web site so they won't disappear. Click here for these extensive references http://www.myxyz.org/phmurphy/dog/DOG-Horse-CDNR.htm
Boulder (October 2, 1999) (April 15, 2001) There are many, many more and I will compile them over time.
North Warwickshire Borough, UK
MY Crap Rap - Humor is also part
of the solution.
Water Quality:
Urban
Watersheds - Microbes-concentrations, Sources, Pathways
North Virginia
Maryland
Boulder (ours
is bad)
Air Quality:
Mexico
City (I don't think ours could ever get this bad, but it IS an aspect of the
problem!)
Vegetation
destruction:
Seattle
Wildlife:
Montana
Berkeley, CA
Same Problems
Elsewhere
Arcata, California
Santa Monica, California
Anchorage, Alaska
Australia - This is the most
in-depth and balanced study I have seen.
The following is an excerpt from this comprehensive assessment.
Leather (1994) points out that dog bans are spreading in Europe because of enforcement difficulties and because of lack of co-operation from dogs owners in acknowledging their responsibilities. The same trend would seem to be occurring here, although unevenly. It is this response which is of most concern - not if it is imposed with good reason in a particular park - but if it is imposed in all or most of the public spaces available at the local level or if it is imposed for no apparent good reason.
Leather, K. L. (1994) 'Legislation for Urban Animal Management : Experience in the Formulation and Implementation of Scoop Law' in Paxton, D.W (ed.) Urban Animal Management, Proceedings of the Third National Conference on Urban Animal Management in Australia, Canberra, 1994, Australian Veterinary Association
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Definition of Ecotone - a transition zone between two ecological communities usually exhibiting competition between organisms common to both. In terms of biological communities, these "in between" areas are typically the most productive and diverse zones on the landscape.