Visitor Counter

hitwebcounter web counter
Visitors Since Blog Created in March 2010

Click Below to:

Add Blog to Favorites

Coyotes-Wolves-Cougars.blogspot.com

Grizzly bears, black bears, wolves, coyotes, cougars/ mountain lions,bobcats, wolverines, lynx, foxes, fishers and martens are the suite of carnivores that originally inhabited North America after the Pleistocene extinctions. This site invites research, commentary, point/counterpoint on that suite of native animals (predator and prey) that inhabited The Americas circa 1500-at the initial point of European exploration and subsequent colonization. Landscape ecology, journal accounts of explorers and frontiersmen, genetic evaluations of museum animals, peer reviewed 20th and 21st century research on various aspects of our "Wild America" as well as subjective commentary from expert and layman alike. All of the above being revealed and discussed with the underlying goal of one day seeing our Continent rewilded.....Where big enough swaths of open space exist with connective corridors to other large forest, meadow, mountain, valley, prairie, desert and chaparral wildlands.....Thereby enabling all of our historic fauna, including man, to live in a sustainable and healthy environment. - Blogger Rick

Subscribe via email to get updates

Enter your email address:

Receive New Posting Alerts

(A Maximum of One Alert Per Day)

Tuesday, August 9, 2016

Before I type anything further I want all of you readers to know that I love Dogs.......And for most of us, they indeed are loving family members the moment that you bring them into your home........Today though, I want to focus on the free roaming dog problem that exists here in America(as well as around the world)............Killers of livestock(estimates range as high as $37 million as of 2003), carriers of rabies and lyme tics and inflictors of hundreds of serious to fatal attacks on us human animals weekly..................Across the USA, thousands of feral, stray and abandoned dogs, often running in Packs and concentrated in our poorest neighborhoods, are wreaking havoc..........“Dog packs hone their hunting skills in a series of escalating attacks,” says Kenneth Phillips, an attorney and the author of several books on dog-bite laws"............. “They start with other animals, then often turn to humans"...................And yet, these animals rarely get the sustained negative press that the occasional "Coyote kills Dog" or "Puma/Bear stroll through suburbia" stories elicit from our mainstream Media...........In Dallas, dog bites in the city had increased 15 percent a year since 2013........In Detroit, there are neighborhoods that Postal Workers cannot deliver the mail because of fear of dog attack...........In NY, feral dog packs are attacking and killing the cared for domestic pooch....................There are 5000 Coyotes in Los Angeles, 3000+ in Chicago and likely thousands in the Greater NYC region...............They are not attacking us as our domestic dogs are.................Time for us to look in the mirror and find a way to enjoy, admire and coexist with WILD AMERICA while simultaneously finding ways to lessen the hurt brought upon us by DOMESTIC DOGS GONE WILD


https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwj-06alibbOAhWHF8AKHcUJD7gQFggcMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.nytimes.com%2F2016%2F08%2F06%2Fus%2Funattended-dogs-in-dallas.html&usg=AFQjCNEXi8s9Rep8g6zwR7g4SuGoLQJ14A&sig2=d6V8R2r6yEYv8cilYH5ybw&bvm=bv.129389765,d.cGc


Thousands of Roaming Dogs Are Cited as Problem in Poor Areas of Dallas





A sign indicating animal control efforts in a 
neighborhood where
 a woman was killed by six unattended dogs in Dallas.
 CreditLM Otero
/Associated Press


















Maeleska Fletes, the president of the Dallas Companion
 Animal Project, called to a dog on the street in Dallas on
 Saturday. A report estimated there were 8,700 dogs on 
the loose in southern parts of the city.CreditCooper Neill for 
The New York Times

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwittMbYhLbOAhWCvRQKHUDOA7cQFggcMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fnews.nationalgeographic.com%2Fnews%2F2003%2F08%2F0821_030821_straydogs.html&usg=AFQjCNHpi3Bb-Wrhoc2SFxYcWaRTgrvhBQ&sig2=tZ_NLnPDwydbkPhu1Vdscg

U.S. Facing Feral-Dog Crisis

Maryann Mott
for National Geographic News
August 21, 2003
Packs of wild dogs roam America's city streets and backcountry roads. Lingering on the edge of domestication, they live in dilapidated buildings, old cars, and sewers— anywhere that will shelter them from summer's blistering heat or winter's bitter cold.
Some are abandoned pets; others were born on the streets. In order to survive, these social creatures form packs, scavenging garbage or killing livestock in teams.
 In rural communities, wild dogs attack livestock, angering farmers who commonly shoot them. A survey by the National Agricultural Statistics Service in 1999 found that feral dogs were partly responsible for killing cows, sheep, and goats worth about U.S. 37 million dollars.
Farms aren't the only place where these animals may be found. Low-income, high-crime neighborhoods in cities like Los Angeles, St. Louis, New York, Santa Fe, Pittsburgh, and Cleveland, are being overrun by tens of thousands of unwanted dogs, says Randy Grim, founder of Stray Rescue in St. Louis, a nonprofit organization that saves street dogs.
"The problem is only going to get worse," he said. "Animal control agencies and humane societies don't want to deal with it. It's just too overwhelming."
The problem started in the 1980s, Grim said, springing from a combination of increased dog fighting, dogs being bred for aggressiveness, and reduced animal control. Compounding the problem, he said, is that America's poorest neighborhoods do not have veterinarians or animal shelters.

feral dog pack in Detroit










In Detroit, packs of free-roaming dogs have posed such a danger that a postal service spokesman said they considered stopping mail delivery to some areas last year because carriers were "constantly being bitten" or injured eluding vicious animals.
In St. Louis, a 10-year-old boy was attacked and killed two years ago by a pack of stray dogs. Police Chief Ron Henderson told the St. Louis Post Dispatch: "They were feeding off this kid. I've seen over 1,500 bodies but I've never, never seen anything like this. Nobody has."
And it's not just a problem in the United States—it's worldwide.
According to some estimates, the current world population of domestic dogs may be as high as 500 million, of which a substantial, although unknown, proportion is free-roaming.
There have been news reports of feral dogs causing havoc in Australia, India, Russia, Taiwan, and Turkey.
In Greece, more than U.S. one million dollars is reportedly being spent on rounding up, sterilizing, and vaccinating thousands of street dogs in Athens before the 2004 Olympic games.
Most towns and cities across America have strong animal-control programs and veterinary services that keep the pet population in check, protecting citizens. But not all communities have that luxury.

Feral Dogs in suburbia and rural locales








The Rosebud Sioux Indian Reservation in South Dakota, where 23,000 people live, is one of the poorest counties in the nation.
The reservation does not have a veterinary hospital, and each week Indian health officials investigate an average of two dog bite incidents, often involving children.The animal population on the reservation is at crisis levels. An estimated 4,000 dogs, covered with mange and ticks, roam the land and are sometimes so hungry they resort to cannibalizing other dogs.
"The animals need to be healthy in order to have a healthy community," said Karen Santos, Companion Animals Project Coordination for the International Fund for Animal Welfare (IFAW.)
In July, the nonprofit organization, along with other animal welfare groups, held a five-day clinic on the reservation, spaying and neutering 980 cats and dogs.
"Fixing the animals makes them less aggressive," explained Santos. This in turn, she added, will help reduce the extraordinarily high number of bites that occur on the reservation.
The clinic's staff also provided treatment for mange and vaccinations.
The program is the first time a humane approach to control the number of pets on the reservation has been carried out. A shoot-and-kill policy, she said, was previously in place.
Another clinic is being planned for May.
The IFAW also has sterilization programs in Turkey, Russia, the Indonesian island of Bali, and the Navajo Nation in Arizona—all aimed at reducing feral dog populations.
In St. Louis, Randy Grim, founder of Stray Rescue, is out on the streets everyday feeding 50 or more mutts.
If these wild dogs don't die of sheer starvation, he said, diseases such as parvovirus, heartworm, or intestinal parasites usually kill them. Their average life span is one to two years.
Many of the animals he sees were once "bait dogs"—smaller, passive animals used to train fighting dogs. Great Dane puppies are commonly used, he said, and wire is twisted around their legs to hold them down, so they can't run while being mauled during training sessions.
"If they live, they are just discarded onto the streets," said Grim. The animals are recognizable by their missing limbs, and scars from the brutal attacks.

Feral Dogs taking over rotting inner cities













Since starting in 1991, Grim is credited with saving 5,000 feral dogs, all of which—through months of gentle, loving care—have been turned into house pets and adopted by new families. Some have even gone on to become therapy animals, bringing joy to people in hospitals and nursing homes.
A book on his rescue triumphs and struggles was published this year, entitled The Man Who Talks To Dogs (St. Martin's Press, Melinda Roth.)
In between interviews and speaking engagements, Grim has found time to start a new program, called Operation East Side, that offers free spaying and neutering and medical care for dogs in low-income areas of St. Louis. He hopes to make it a model program for other cities to follow.
"The involvement of all of us in animal welfare is essential to solving this problem," said Grim. "Through sterilization and rehabilitation, the feral dog problem can be contained but first we must acknowledge its existence."
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&cad=rja&uact=8&ved=0ahUKEwi91evPjLbOAhXrKMAKHc6FA1YQFggcMAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fnymag.com%2Fnymetro%2Furban%2Fpets_animals%2Ffeatures%2F9986%2F&usg=AFQjCNHmfPS9o5fN8ge4m2pFS9IWHpjzWg&sig2=ZItJC0GbOnOZkPwAkS5ebw


When Pets Attack

Sure, crime is down, but have you heard about the pack of wild dogs? A Border collie’s near-death experience, and the stubborn loophole that makes the streets of Manhattan a dog-eat-dog world.

ShareThis
Harry and his dogs at their lot on 36th Street. 


No comments: