Dog walkers should be banned from sensitive parts of the countryside, according to researchers who have found taking a mutt for a walk is bad for birds. Researchers from the University of New South Wales found a 41% drop in the number of birds counted after a dog was walked through the forest, compared with no walking at all (The Guardian). People walking without dogs also disturbed birds but “impact was a fraction” of that when dogs were involved, according to The Times. “These results argue against access by dog walkers to sensitive conservation areas,” Peter Banks and Jessica Bryant write in a paper in Biology Letters (abstract, pdf). They add: “That the effects of dogs occurred even where dog walking was frequent suggests further that local wildlife does not become habituated to continued disturbance”.

The Royal Society for the Protection of Birds told the Times, “If you are walking your dog in a sensitive area for biodiversity, clearly it is having an impact.” But the Kennel Club told the Guardian it “does not consider that dog walking in the countryside in the UK has any detrimental effect on birds providing walkers stick to the rules of the countryside”. New research on one side – considered opinion of a spokesperson for the Kennel Club on the other. Who are you going to trust?

Observers counting birds seen and heard followed 20 seconds behind dogs being walked on leads, walkers without dogs and a control with neither walkers nor dogs. Banks told the BBC: “The key finding is that dog-walking certainly does have an impact on birds – and we were quite surprised by the magnitude of the impact.” Readers of the Telegraph’s article on the research are not happy. “So Man’s Best Friend is to be banned in favour of ‘environmental correctness’, and again, one scientific study is brought to the fore by the media, accepted as writ,” comments one. Many dog lovers are asking why they have been singled out, rather than those who own cats.

There is a great interview with the researcher on Radio 4.

Image: Getty