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Picking
up dog poop is not just for aesthetic
purposes
Dog Waste Facts from USA
Today
06/06/2002 - Updated 09:07
PM ET
Dog waste
poses threat to water
By
Traci Watson, USA TODAY
For as long as
the dog has been man's best friend, dog waste has posed a
menace to man's nose and foot. Now science has revealed a more
unsavory truth: It's an environmental pollutant.
In the mid-1990s,
scientists perfected methods for tracking the origin of nasty
bacteria in streams and seawater. From Clearwater, Fla., to
Arlington, Va., to Boise the trail has led straight to the
hunched-up dog — and to owners who don't pick up after their
pets.
At some beaches,
dogs help raise bacteria levels so high that visitors must
stay out of the water. Goaded by such studies, some cities
have directed as much as $10,000 in the last few years to
encourage dog owners to clean up after their pets. A few
municipalities have started issuing citations to those who
ignore pet clean-up ordinances.
Many dog lovers
are in denial about their pooches' leavings. But researchers
have named the idea that areas used by dogs pump more bacteria
into waterways — the "Fido hypothesis."
Dogs are only one
of many fixtures of suburban America that add to water
pollution. Lawn fertilizers, rinse water from driveways and
motor oil commonly end up in streams and lakes.
But unlike those
sources, dogs generate disease-causing bacteria that can make
people sick. Studies done in the last few years put dogs third
or fourth on the list of contributors to bacteria in
contaminated waters. "Dogs are one of our usual suspects,"
says Valerie Harwood, a microbiologist at the University of
South Florida. "At certain sites, we find their effect to be
significant."
It doesn't take a
Ph.D. to figure out that dog do is nasty. But it took science
to determine how nasty it is.
From mutt to
blue-blooded champion, all dogs harbor so-called coliform
bacteria, which live in the gut. The group includes E. coli, a
bacterium that can cause disease, and fecal coliform bacteria,
which spread through feces. Dogs also carry salmonella and
giardia. Environmental officials use measurements of some of
these bacteria as barometers of how much fecal matter has
contaminated a body of water.
This wouldn't
matter if pet dogs were as rare as pet chinchillas. But four
in 10 U.S. households include at least one dog, according to
the American Pet Products Manufacturers Association. The
association's statistics also show that Americans owned 54.6
million dogs in 1996 and 68 million dogs in 2000. Of that
total, 45% were "large" dogs — 40 pounds or more.
Those numbers add
up to a lot of kibble. That wouldn't matter if all dog owners
also owned a pooper-scooper. But several studies have found
that roughly 40% of Americans don't pick up their dogs' feces
(women are more likely to do so than men).
New analysis
provides answers
The environmental
impact of dog waste went unrecognized for decades. Then
scientists developed lab techniques to determine the origin of
fecal bacteria contaminating water. One method is a variant of
DNA fingerprinting. Another method looks at the antibiotic
resistance of microbes from different species.
Scientists
caution that the methods are still new. They are able to
distinguish between major and minor sources of pollution, but
they can't say with precision whether dogs contribute 20% or
30% of the pollution in a stream. "There's inherently some
error," says Don Stoeckel, a microbiologist for the Ohio
district of the U.S. Geological Survey who's studying
bacteria-tracking methods. "I think the best (they) can do is
give you some evidence of the magnitude of each
source."
Nonetheless,
Stoeckel says, the analytical tools do provide useful
information. Researchers have studied dozens of waterways.
Wild birds and humans usually head the roster of who's fouling
the water. But in some areas, dogs make significant
deposits.
At Morro Bay,
Calif., for example, dogs contribute roughly 10% of the E.
coli, says Christopher Kitts, a microbiologist at California
Polytechnic State University-San Luis Obispo. "And that can be
the difference between a beach closing and a beach not
closing," he says.
Places where dogs
dirty the water:
- Stevenson Creek in
Clearwater, Fla. Residents were worried that a sewage
treatment plant contaminated the creek. But when Harwood
tested the water, she found that dogs, along with leaky
septic tanks and wild animals, were to blame for high
bacteria counts. Dog feces probably washed out of yards by
the creek, Harwood says.
- Four Mile Run in Arlington
and Fairfax counties, Va. Studies show that dogs add to
the contamination in this suburban Washington, D.C. stream.
Officials calculate that the 12,000 dogs living in Four Mile
Run's watershed leave behind more than 5,000 pounds of
"solid waste" every day.
- Boise River in Boise. The
river suffers from high bacteria levels that make it
unsuitable for swimming. Testing of streams and drainpipes
flowing into the river showed that in urban areas, dogs were
a leading culprit. In some spots, dogs and cats account for
even more of the bacteria than human feces — from
dysfunctional septic tanks and leaky sewage pipes — do.
Fines don't
sway some
Even where dogs
aren't the prime offenders, they're one of the few polluters
authorities have control over. At many California beaches, for
example, seagulls and other birds are most responsible for
high bacteria levels. But federal laws protect
birds.
That leaves dogs.
Officials know that they have a lot of educating to do before
people realize their pooch can be a canine sewage pipe. Some
people find it humiliating to carry a plastic bag.
A survey by the
Center for Watershed Protection in 1999 found that of the 41%
of respondents who rarely or never clean up after their dogs,
44% would refuse to do so in the face of fines and neighbors'
complaints. Reasons included, "because it eventually goes
away," "small dog, small waste," and "just
because."
So more cities
may follow the lead of Laguna Beach, Calif., a wealthy beach
enclave. The city provides pooper-scoopers at the local dog
park. But many people "don't take care of their little
friends," says Victor Hillstead, the city's parks and
buildings manager.
So the city hired
Entre-Manure, poop-scooping service based in nearby Dana Point
whose motto is "#1 in the #2 Business." Since the city's
contract started in January, the service has collected 187
pounds of dog waste from the city. "I'm real proud of that
fact," says Craig Stern, founder and chief picker-upper.
"That's pollution that'll never reach the ocean."
Article source:
www.usatoday.com/news/science/2002-06-07-dog-usat.htm
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