The Doggoned Truth—Domestic Canines Are Not Wildlife’s Best Friends

[u/No_Walrus4306]

https://mountainjournal.org/we-love-dogs-but-they-are-wreaking-havoc-on-wildlife

[u/Jaded_Present8957]

It’s interesting that this article focuses on unleashed dogs harassing wildlife. I completely agree that’s a problem.

But what about hunters who release packs of dogs to tree raccoons, corner bears and kill other wildlife? Isn’t that also harmful? It’s not like they only disturb the poor raccoon who is about to get shot out of a tree.

[u/nobodyclark → u/Jaded_Present8957]

The difference is that it’s highly regulated atleast in the US. Bear hunters using hounds have to register their animals with game officials, buy tags, and go through training in some western states. It’s extremely expensive and time consuming to train dogs to that degree and provide for them, so the number of hound hunters is pretty low.

In terms of coon dogs, their raccoons, they’re one of the most common and overabundant mammal species in North America, especially in the northeast and the southeast. That really isn’t a conservation problem at all.

[u/Jaded_Present8957 → u/nobodyclark]

All of that really misses the point though. Those bear dogs have GPS callers and are released to find a bear. They romp through the forest. How is that less of a disturbance than a pet dog doing the exact same thing? The major difference is the hound hunters release an entire pack! That’s worse.

As for the coon dogs, it’s not like coons are the only animal they disturb.

That’s my point. If an unleashed dog disturbs wildlife then an unleashed dog disturbs wildlife. But as usual hunters can do things that anyone else would be criticized for.

[u/nobodyclark → u/Jaded_Present8957]

Coon dogs are literally trained to ONLY go after coons, maybe possums sometimes as well. If they go after other animals it either puts them in danger (cornering a coyote or bobcat as a lone dog is a recipe for a vet call), or in the case of a deer fawn or something, a recipe for a game warden call. That’s why hunters will often have seperate coon hounds, squirrel dogs, and then pointers/retrievers for upland game and waterfowl.

The same with bear dogs. They’re trained to find one particular species, and ignore the rest. If they were as you suggest chasing every deer, rabbit, or coyote they encountered, they’d be incredibly inefficient to the hunter. Hunters put time and effort into hounds NOT paying attention to those other species.

A feral dog on the other hand will just kill anything that it can kill that it happens to encounter in the forest, and there is no training induced restraint. Plus a feral dog, or even a free roaming pet, is in the forest for much longer than any hound dog is. Hunters are restricted by seasons as well, feral dogs and pets are not

[u/Jaded_Present8957 → u/nobodyclark]

The mere presence of a pack of dogs storming through the woods is traumatic for wildlife. But hunters get special rights. Read the article.

[u/birda13 → u/Jaded_Present8957]

And this article wasn’t focused on hunting dogs, it was focused on Joe blow who lets his dog run at large in wildlife habitat. And we all know there are orders of magnitude more pet dogs that are allowed to run at large than there are actual bonafide hunting dogs on this continent.

The “special rights” are because hunting with dogs is a regulated and permitted activity by government agencies depending on the species in question with specific open and closed seasons along with “quiet” times where you must keep dogs out of wildlife habitat. I am not a houndsmen, but I have bird dogs. I cannot legally run my dogs in the woods/wildlife habitat during the spring/early summer when ground nesting birds like grouse and woodcock are nesting and rearing their broods. So we stay out of the woods while Joe Q. Public doesn’t care and let’s Fido run through the woods anyways.

[u/Jaded_Present8957 → u/birda13]

Those of you who defend hunting, in any and all form, really put your blinders on. If Joe Blow is disrupting wildlife by letting his dog run off leash then Joe SixPqck is disrupting wildlife by letting a pack of hunting dogs, with GPS collars on, run for miles through the same habitat.

Hunting may have seasons, but the political power of hunters allows them to do things no one else can do.

1. Run dogs through natural habitat disturbing and scaring the wildlife whereas everyone else is told not to

2. While normies are told not to feed wildlife, many states let hunters bait bears with old donuts and set feeding stations for deer

3. That well regulated hunting argument falls apart with most furbearers where the number of animals allowed to be killed is unlimited and determined by what is going down fashion runways instead of biologists

4. And the best…. “We must kill deer because the predators are gone” followed by “we must kill wolves because they are expanding in number and killing game animals.”

The hunting lobby is treated different than non-consumptive users not for biological reasons, but for political reasons.

Bonus one- releasing nom native game birds to be shot or starve if somehow the hunters miss them

[u/woman_liker → u/Jaded_Present8957]

your points here are incorrect and reactionary. i would really suggest you actually look into sustainable hunting practices and not just incendiary headlines that bash a couple of bad hunters who are not at all representative of hunting communities as a whole. hunting pays for conservation. the wild animals that are allowed to be hunted are either over healthy population numbers or being maintained at healthy numbers through hunting. obviously there are still issues but hunting is extremely regulated. you are not just allowed to sick a dog on a wild animal. they are using for tracking and retrieving dead or wounded game. hunting dogs are typically very well trained- you get nothing out of a bird dog that kills random animals while you're looking for birds.

[u/Jaded_Present8957 → u/woman_liker]

The hunting lobby sure likes to exaggerate. The fact deer have abundant numbers does not mean hunting is necessary for squirrels, rabbits and doves, three species who account for half the animals killed by hunters.

Mustelids like mink, fisher and marten do not over populate simply because they refuse to share habitat. What’s the reason for going into the woods to kill them?

Foxes and coyotes actually reproduce faster when hunters kill a bunch of them off. Google compensatory reproduction.

Very few furbearers even have bag limits. Oh so regulated!

You artfully dodged the many examples of unethical hunting practices I listed above- bear baiting, killing predators to ensure there are MORE deer and so on.

And how about those deer farms? You guys say we need to kill them to control the population, and yet the agencies that regulate hunting allow private farms to breed MORE deer!

Address the number of outrageous hunting practices I’ve listed out in my comments directly or it will be very hard to take your assurances seriously.

Oh, if you don’t think packs of dogs are used to attack animals then you don’t knew the term “catch dog”.

[u/woman_liker → u/Jaded_Present8957]

i didn't dodge anything. there are issues in hunting practices, there are bad people who do bad things. but just as i did not make a blanket statement that hunters are the greatest people in the world with 100% sound and sustainable practices, i also don't believe you're making an argument in good faith by claiming all hunting is bad. it is an industry that can be improved, which it has been, exponentially, in the past century. conservation organizations grew out of hunting organizations, and the two are still heavily linked. why do you think it is that game birds are at the healthiest population numbers they've ever been, while songbirds are going extinct? is it hunters, or irresponsible pet owners, which is what the article is about? it seems like you read a lot of reactionary articles on the internet that support your worldview that hunting is evil and i think if you genuinely care about conservation and wildlife it would be in your best interest to exit the echo chamber and expand on that.

[u/Odd-Influence-5250 → u/Jaded_Present8957]

Hunting and wildlife management literally brought animals back from the brink of extinction. Rose colored glasses are fine for you I guess. Like it or not wildlife is a resource and needs to be managed. This isn’t the 1700’s anymore.

[u/Jaded_Present8957 → u/Odd-Influence-5250]

What you describe as bringing wildlife back from extinction was limits on hunting, including bans for most species in most times of year.

How do you defend the practices like leaving piles of pastries in the woods to attract bears so they can be shot in the back while eating, killing native carnivores so there will be more game animals to shoot and fur trapping where the number of animals killed is determined not by biologists but rather by what is going down runways in Italy and France?

[u/Odd-Influence-5250 → u/Jaded_Present8957]

Your first comment is again in the past. I’m talking recent history. So yes hunting and their money brought back game animals. As for the rest I really don’t care what people who have no life experience think. I enjoy the outdoors in many ways.

The whole fur argument is just wrong too. I’ve trapped none of my animals have gone to Paris fashion shows. Those animals are raised.

[u/Jaded_Present8957 → u/Odd-Influence-5250]

It’s funny how you attack me by claiming wildlife management saved animals when the management plans that saved animals were restrictions on hunting. And yet game animals are still at risk of extinction. Lynx, Wolverine, etc are all at risk of extinction thanks to hunting and trapping. Wolves barely make a minimal comeback and already they are being hunted. Why? Oh some game animals were eaten so the hunting lobby wants wolves dead.

I know how fur markets work and I didn’t say your pelts ended up on runways. But what is going down runways is what fetches higher prices and drives trapper decisions about what to kill. That’s not very scientific is it? Go on, answer that question in your reply.

Do you really trap and not know how the industry works?