Decision to Ban Dogs from Brockwells Meadows

We have recently made the difficult decision to exclude dogs from our Brockwells Meadows reserve. This is the second of our reserves where we have decided that dogs will not be allowed, the first being Magor Marsh, the third, when it formally opens to the public in 2023, will be Bridewell Common.

Public opinions differ greatly on whether or not dogs should be allowed on nature reserves and this is also the case within Gwent Wildlife Trust (GWT) and within the conservation movement more widely. In this blog I am going to examine the relationship between dogs and wildlife and hopefully help people to understand our decision.

‘The Dogs of Torfaen’ is not a gothic horror film, nor is it a Cwmbran-based death metal outfit. It is a Facebook Group devoted to our four-legged friends and it has 21,000 members. Dogs are popular, there are thought to be 13 million of them in the UK and a billion worldwide. They are part of our lives and part of our families and there is little doubt that many people’s enjoyment of the countryside is greatly reduced if they are not able to bring their dog out with them. Indeed, for many people, the reason for getting out and about in the great outdoors is to walk the dog. At GWT we understand how much people love being out with their pets and our general policy for our reserves that dogs are allowed, but must be kept on a lead, reflects this. There are however strong arguments against allowing dogs on our nature reserves and I am going to discuss some of them here, hopefully in a dispassionate and objective way.

Wildlife must always be our first priority. Our members, our funders, our partnership organsations, and our trustees expect this, and the wellbeing of the wildlife on our reserves can’t be compromised. So before we can make a decision about dogs on our reserves, we need to know whether or not they are having a negative effect on the wildlife that we have a responsibility to protect.

Do dogs have a negative effect on wildlife, and if so, how?

It is important to appreciate what a dog is, it is a predator. Having predators around presents a very obvious problem if you’re a wild animal: you, or your young or your eggs might get eaten. This potential ‘direct’ effect of dogs on wildlife is what is behind requests to keep dogs on leads, or as some other organisation say, to keep them ‘under control’, and if owners behave responsibly and follow the rules, these measures should be largely effective. But unfortunately, this direct effect is just the tip of an iceberg of less obvious ‘indirect’ effects that dogs can have, many of which come under the general term ‘disturbance’.

As far as wild animals are concerned a dog is a wolf, something to be feared and avoided. Some modern breeds may not bear much resemblance to wolves but as far as wild mammals, birds and other wildlife are concerned they look, sound and smell like wolves, and the smell lingers long after the dog is gone. There is strong evidence that wild animals that share their space with dogs are in a state of constantly elevated stress, measurable by their levels of the stress hormone cortisol. We are becoming more and more aware of the problems caused to human health by chronic stress and elevated cortisol levels, well the same applies to animals. Stressed wildlife spends more of its time alert, watching and listening for danger rather than feeding or resting or doing the other things it needs to do to stay healthy. So even if the wild bird or mammal is not flying or running away from your dog, if it can see or hear a dog close by, it is probably suffering from stress. And perhaps most significantly, if it can smell ‘dog’ or wolf, it will probably be under stress. A large number of scientific papers have been published that demonstrate reduced populations, reduced breeding success and reduced body condition in birds and mammals that live in places where dogs are frequently present.

Rick Mundy

Cattle 'aftermath' grazing the grasslands at Brockwells Meadows SSSI

Another affect that dogs can have on our reserves concerns livestock. Grazing animals are essential to maintain species-rich grasslands and some other habitats, and we use cows, sheep and other livestock for this ‘conservation grazing’ widely across out estate. Problems with dogs and sheep are well known and well publicised, two pregnant ewes were killed by pet dogs on our Great Traston Meadows reserve last summer for example, but dogs can also be a problem for cattle, horses and any other domestic animals. This issue is one of the main triggers for our decision at Brockwells Meadows where several incidents have been reported of poorly controlled dogs not only chasing and upsetting the young cows that graze the reserve but also potentially putting their human companions at risk by causing the cattle to stampede. As with wild animals, these types of interactions with dogs will stress livestock and can affect their behaviour and manageability in the longer-term. It also costs us valuable time to deal with, takes us away from other tasks that we could be getting on with, and very importantly, it can affect our relationships with the graziers we work so closely with and depend upon.

Rick Mundy

The rare Hornet Robberfly, one of Britain's largest flies, is a vitally important species for Brockwells Meadows - its presence is one of the features that gives the reserve its Site of Special Scientific Interest (SSSI) conservation status.

Another less obvious issue can be caused by the medicines that we use to keep our pets healthy. Dog flea treatments often contain powerful insecticides known as neonicotinoids, these chemicals can be washed off a dog’s fur by rain or wet vegetation or when the dog enters a pond or stream (which is not allowed on our reserves), and thereby find their way into the environment. These are extremely potent insecticides that kill not only fleas, but all other insects, other invertebrates, fish, amphibians and even birds. It is important to mention here that flea treatments that do not contain neonicotinoids are available, so please look into this if you use flea treatments on your pets. Dog worming treatments can also find their way into the environment via a dog’s faeces. One of the important species at Brockwells Meadows is the hornet robberfly, one of Britain’s largest flies and a rare and spectacular species. Like many insects, hornet robberflies lay their eggs in dung and they cannot survive in dung from animals that have been treated with wormers such as avermectins. For this reason, the farmer whose cattle graze the reserve is not allowed to treat his animals with avermectins. Many dogs are treated with the same wormers so dogs entering the reserve and leaving these chemicals behind them could potentially be undoing all his good work.

Dog faeces and urine in general can also be a problem. Not only can they carry diseases that can affect cattle, sheep and humans, they also fertilise the ground. Removing nutrients from grasslands is the key way in which a diverse flower rich sward can be encouraged. On the SSSI fields at Brockwells Meadows for example, we are not allowed to import any supplementary food for the cattle so that in terms of nutrients, it is closed system. Dogs come from outside this closed system and by leaving faeces and urine behind them, they import nutrients into the system, the opposite to what we want.

Rick Mundy

Brockwells Meadows SSSI nature reserve.

Reserve decision

So there are a number of potential issues, and different ones will apply to a different extent on different reserves. At Brockwells, the combination of disturbance to the cattle, the risk to human health and safety of stampeding cattle, and the potential for avermectins to be introduced, has been enough for us to decide that dogs need to be excluded. Please don’t think we are dog haters, we’re not, we are mostly dog lovers, a quick show of hands at a recent staff meeting indicated that exactly 50% of GWT’s staff own pet dogs. But if we become aware of a threat to one of our reserves, be it from dogs or anything else, we have to make an evidence-based and rational decision and act, in the case of Brockwells Meadows this is what we have done.