The bodies of the nearly 80 sheep killed in various rural parishes in Cotopaxi showed a messy attack pattern and some parts were torn. This confirmed that the deaths, which went viral on social networks last week, were committed by feral dogs, says the Ministry of the Environment, Water and Ecological Transition of Ecuador (Maate).
These deaths expose, once again, the alarming situation of dogs that have become feral or feral, due to the carelessness of their owners, in the country. These dogs are competing for territory and prey with wild species to which they can also transmit diseases such as distemper and scabies. They also attack small carnivores, mammals, reptiles, and amphibians.
Feral dogs were the ones that attacked sheep in Cotopaxi, confirms Ministry of the Environment
In addition, attacks on farmyard animals cause confusion in rural communities that begin hunting species such as the puma. Although this type of feline, due to the reduction and destruction of its habitat, can attack a sheep due to lack of natural prey, most of these attacks are carried out by dogs.
In fact, in the Cotopaxi attack, the misinformation generated by social networks, and by some media outlets, led to the belief that a puma was the cause of the deaths.
Although there are community members who do detect the problem of dogs and seek to kill them through poisoned carrion. However, this procedure is highly questioned, since it generates collateral deaths of wild animals that are in great danger of extinction, such as the condor.
Galo Zapata, from the Wildlife Conservation Society Ecuador (WCS), has carried out several studies on feral dogs in the country since 2009. He affirms that with the growth of the human population, the number of dogs has also been increasing.
“The problem is that people don’t take care of their pets and I’m even talking about chickens, cows, sheep. They are all loose, they do not have pens, stables and animals that do not have good management are easy prey for any predator, be they dogs or wild animals“, He says.
Feral dogs are on the prowl in the Cerro Blanco Protected Forest and in other protected areas of the Coast
Even owned dogs are also part of the problem, as, according to Zapata, they are not fed well, are not vaccinated or sterilized, and run loose, especially in rural communities. This is why the expert does not rule out the possibility that the attack in Cotopaxi was caused by dogs from the communities themselves.
“Feral dogs need their own space and run away from people. My theory is that this attack in Cotopaxi was provoked by dogs from the communities themselves, but it is only a hypothesis.”, he maintains.
Thousands of feral dogs roam natural areas of Ecuador
Ten years ago, Zapata and his working group made a population estimate of feral dogs in certain areas of the country, whose area amounted to 100 square kilometers. The results showed that there were 1.1 dogs per square kilometer.
“We are talking about thousands of dogs. Although this is an extrapolation and part of assumptions that are not true, such as that the density of dogs is constant everywhere, but there will be places that are better for dogs to live in and others that are not. The problem is big and currently they attack sheep, but tomorrow we will be able to see groups of dogs attacking people as is already happening in India. We have not yet seen the ugliest face of the problem and we must do something to control it”, adds Zapata.
In 2018 it was learned that a pack of wild dogs killed six children in northern India. More than a dozen infantrymen were injured by canines that year.
In 2014, estimates were published stating that there are close to 1,000 million dogs on the entire planet and at least 700 million roam without supervision, according to WCS Chile. For Ecuador, it was estimated that there is one dog for every seven people in urban areas and one for every three people in rural areas.
In addition to the abandonment of dogs in rural or peri-urban areas, in Ecuador it is also observed that many people take their dogs to national areas such as Cotopaxi or Antisana, but this is counterproductive because, even if the dog is well cared for and does not hunt other animals, through urine and feces, can spread diseases to wild species.
“The presence of dogs that roam without supervision, abandoned, feral or feral in Andean areas of the country currently represents one of the most serious threats to the safety of the people who live in these places, as well as to wildlife and livestock with the that live together”, says the National Working Group of the Andean Condor (GNTCA).
The organization also claims that feral dog populations have become the main carnivore in these mountainous regions. For scavenger species such as the Andean condor, feral dogs represent the main threat to their conservation: “It has been scientifically documented that they compete for food, since these dogs monopolize the available carrion and, in addition, attack juvenile condors.”
Feral domestic dogs affect and attack wild species in Ecuador
The presence of these dogs is not only limited to the Sierra, since they have been seen in sectors of the Coast such as Cerro Blanco, in Guayaquil, and even in distant areas of the Amazon such as north of the Yasuní National Park or in the reserve. Cuyabeno.
What would be a possible solution to feral dogs in Ecuador?
Although the Maate has assured that it works on the control of feral species and the modernization of management in the raising of domestic animals, the GNTCA calls for the formation of a national technical table that considers priorities and proposals for the generation of public policy that contributes to confronting the problem, since feral dogs put at risk not only the lives of other domestic and wild animals, but also the lives of rural populations.
Gustavo Manrique, Minister of the Environment, agrees that a real solution must be found that allows the human-flora-fauna conflict to be addressed so that “painful” situations such as the one in Cotopaxi do not arise: “We are working on a management plan, although We haven’t defined the details yet and we hope to talk about it next week.”
To this is added the education of the population for the care of their domestic animals and even the implementation of chips to be able to carry out the traceability of vaccination, sterilization and the information of the owner of a dog in both rural and urban areas, says Zapata.
Nevertheless, current populations of feral dogs must be reduced, says expert: “You have to remove them, there is no other option. When we talk about feral dogs we are no longer talking about domestic ones. Those dogs cannot be captured, rehabilitated and adopted. It is a shame that we get to the point of talking about culling animals, since they are victims of our own irresponsibility, but these dogs are causing a huge ecological impact”.
The most efficient and least cruel method to carry out this process would be similar to the one used for the reduction of goats in Galapagos, where gangs of people shot the animals. (I)
Source: Eluniverso
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