It is sure to send wings a-flapping and tails a-sagging. Even when owners walk their dogs on leashes they still manage to frighten off nearly half the birds in natural parklands.
Land managers in several countries, including the UK and Australia, have responded to birders鈥� worries that dogs may be scaring local wildlife by banning the animals from sensitive wild areas. But dog-owners maintain there is little hard evidence to support this view, and are angry over such bans.
So Peter Banks and Jessica Bryant at the University of New South Wales in Sydney tested the effect of dogs on bird sightings at 90 different sites in both regional parks where dogs are allowed on a leash and in neighbouring national parks, where dogs are banned. They used two 鈥渢reatments鈥� 鈥� a person walking alone and a person with a dog.
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After each treatment group walked past, the researchers counted the number of birds they saw or heard within 50 metres. Walking a dog was followed by an immediate exodus of nearby birds, leaving 41 per cent fewer individual birds on average. The number of species also dropped by 35 per cent compared to when no one was walking. People alone, even two people, had half the impact (Biology Letters, )
Walking a dog without a leash is likely to be even worse, says Banks, who says the birds must perceive the dogs as potential predators. He anticipates dog-owners will react badly to his findings.
