Dogs and Cats Put Wildlife at Risk

PLAZA, PABLO I.; SPEZIALE, KARINA L.; ZAMORA NASCA, LUCIA B.; LAMBERTUCCI, SERGIO A.

JOURNAL OF WILDLIFE MANAGEMENT

WILDLIFE SOC

Año: 2019 vol. 83 p. 767 - 768

0022-541X

Populations of domestic dogs and cats are increasingworldwide and affecting ecosystems (Medina et al. 2011,Hughes and Macdonald 2013), which is especially relevantwhen they live near protected areas (Lessa et al. 2016). Freerangingdogs and cats interact with wildlife in several waysthrough predation, harassment, disease transmission, orhybridization. They can also compete with wildlife byreducing the availability of prey or by altering activitypatterns through interference (Hughes and Macdonald2013). Most of the time these interactions are negative forwildlife, which lead dogs and cats to be considered the causeof more than half of the global extinctions of bird, mammal,and reptile species (Medina et al. 2011, Doherty et al. 2017).Regrettably, despite the fact that these effects have beenstudied around the world, the presence of free-ranging dogsand cats near protected areas is not perceived as an importantproblem for most people and policy makers (Sch?uttler et al.2018).