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Autonomous non-profit organization
“Center for Animal Welfare Legal Protection”
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Quiet domestic killers
Yuri Krasnov,
Doctor of Biology,
Murmansk Institute of Marine Biology
Stray dogs, who are they?
While studying closely the life of wild animals in nature, we found that these are, somehow or other, being hunted by a majority of dog family individuals. As a general rule, hunters refer to all dogs as stray, if these are encountered in lands, forests and moors without the owner. Legally, this is correct. Yet, in order to get at the meaning of this phenomenon, it is necessary to clarify the dogs’ true status. Therefore, for the sake of clarity, we shall call dogs, that lost or never had any intimate bond with man, feral. The winter period on Kola Peninsula is critical to the dogs. In view of the competitive relations with wolves and considering the current population of hoofed animals, the dogs are unable to survive on their own only, away from human settlements. In winter, to one or other degree, they are forced to exist, counting on man, but avoiding close contact with him. City outskirts, deserted settlements, major municipal scrap-heaps constitute a convenient environment to feral dogs during this period.
More often than not, outside the boundaries of human settlements, one encounters dogs kept by their owners unleashed. Being essentially domestic dogs, they only roam from time to time. Let us call them neglected. By and large, the dogs exist thanks to their owners (individual or collective), therefore they do not walk too far beyond the environs of populated areas. These may also include the dogs that for a variety of reasons were left behind or lost by the owners during a hunt, a fishing trip, or while the owners were busy picking up mushrooms and berries. Such animals are few, but it is these animals that can be found away from human dwellings.
For the last few years, these two groups are being actively replaced by dogs that lost their homes after their owners had left remote settlements and garrisons. Abandoned animals, such as these, usually do not die, but get adapted to the prevalent conditions. In some cases, the dogs become increasingly feral, in others, they find new owners.
In the vicinity of human settlements, one is likely to encounter dogs of hunting breeds, in our quarters, these are most often laikas, taking strolls on their own. In rural areas, dogs of such breeds are free to visit hunting grounds freely and at any time. At times, one is under the impression that some laika individuals stay much less at home in summer than in the surrounding forests. The green zones around cities and settlements more often than not become places of traditional walking of police, hunting and decorative dog breeds. Here, the dogs are usually unleashed. It is common for dogs, especially those of hunting and decorative breeds, to use such cases for making quite long excursions. Such instances of absence sometimes become quite protracted, especially when male dogs escort a female dog on a walking spree in the environs. On more than one occasion, I could see such unattended bitch being escorted away from human dwellings by pet male dogs. As a result, the new litter of puppets replaces a local group if feral dogs. In cases that we were able to follow up, most of the litter died. Out of 4-5 puppets, only one usually survived, at best.
Behavior and local relations
In natural conditions, it is extremely hard to determine the status of an encountered dog. Experience is there to indicate that both feral individuals and an overwhelming majority of neglected animals outside of human settlements are equally wary of man. Any attempts to become closer are nipped in the bud. Most dogs try to avoid an encounter with man, if this does not help, the dogs hide in the folds of the terrain. One can only determine accurately a particular group to which a dog belongs by making observations, occasionally in human settlements proper, where the dogs are much more lenient to man.
Feral dogs, for the most part, occur in small packs in the same area. In summer, they use for rest either open spaces, commanding a good visibility of the surrounding area, or on the contrary, small meadows, reliably camouflaged with shrubs of trees. While in the former case, the dogs can be easily spotted and watched, one can only stumble upon dogs in the thicket by chance, the alarmed barking betraying the dogs at the moment of flight. During the winter period, they settle on the outskirts of a city, where, for all the competition with urban dogs, it is still easier to find food. However, during the polar night, the dogs have a hard time, and, apparently, at such times, they can exist thanks to man only. With the arrival of the sun and snow crust, the dogs venture taking long walks. In the south of Kola Peninsula, they prefer the ice of Kandalaksha Gulf for this, surveying wooded islands and environs within the radius of 20 km and more. It is not uncommon of some animals not to have time to leave the islands: in such cases. They have to stay there for the summer. Alas, many islands are part of the state reserve, where such dogs are regarded as the unwanted predator and, wherever possible, are annihilated.
Neglected urban dogs adhere to a similar life-style, too. As the sun rises above the horizon, the dogs increasingly often come out on the ice of gulf areas that are closer to the city, mainly for games. They survey the islands and air holes in ice cover in groups or singly. When outside the city, the dogs are extremely wary of man in summer as well as in winter. In billowy mountain tundras in the north of Kola Peninsula, a neglected dog was noted to react to a moving human being, when he could hardly be seen, i.e. at a distance of several hundred meters. Yet, hiding among the stones, the dog would easily let a man pass a few steps away from its shelter. At the same time, this and other neglected dogs had no problem contacting a bird watcher in the settlement where the dogs’ formal owners lived.
Pedigree-stock police and guard dogs could hardly ever be encountered outside human settlements. This happened only when a pet male dog being walked joined a dog wedding, wandering near the city outskirts.
Hunting habits
In natural environment, the population of feral dogs, like that of other predators, is mainly controlled by the availability of fodder easy to get. It is for this reason that one finds it impossible to believe the aforesaid figures of the dog population in the woods of Kola Peninsula. The dogs simply have nothing to eat there. It is not for nothing that the wolf population here even in the best years to them is seldom in excess of 100 individuals, while a daily run of the pack (especially over the ice of Kandalaksha Gulf) may reach 80 km. To neglected dogs, however, a hunt is a possibility to fulfill their predator instinct, in the first place, and only then - an extra source of fodder.
Over the long years of work on the shores of the Barents and White Seas, I could see diverse hunting activity of both feral and neglected dogs. It should be pointed out that except some rare cases that will be discussed at a greater length below that activity was ineffective. Of course, in summer, given the high population of pocket mice-type rodents, the dogs rather successfully hunted field mice and lemmings, but were reluctant to eat them. A more common manner was to strangle the prey and abandon it there and then. Similar behavior was demonstrated by a neglected dog that found an American mink on the ice of the White Sea. Its frozen carcass was later found and dressed by crows.
The dogs that went on long excursions over the ice of the White Sea sometimes had no time to leave the islands that were to their liking before the ice cover broke up. This meant a big problem to them. The only more or less substantial food to them here could be hares that were too few and numerous birds. In the limited area of an island, hare hunting sooner or later was a success. The situation with birds was more complicated. On small islands, dogs constituted a serious disturbing factor, therefore most ducks, sea-gulls and sandpipers moved to other places prior to commencement of nesting. As a result, the very fact of dogs’ existence led to an abrupt reduction of the numbers of nesting sea birds and land birds living near the water. In this situation, the dogs, more often than not, have to hunt ducks only that sometimes have a rest on the shore edge. Obviously, such hunt was very ineffective, in any event, we were unable to see successful attempts or results thereof, because most “Robinsons” eventually die, because occasionally one encounters dog corpses on the islands.
The fate of feral dogs on large islands is different. The long shoreline increases the likelihood of finding suitable food in sea dumps. Besides, the disturbing impact of several quadrupedal predators at a time on an area of a few hundred hectares is not as noticeable as in the former case. In the Barents Sea, we were busy tracking, on a regular basis, raids of settlement dogs on adjoining outskirts of the island, among them the territory of a state reserve.
The results of our observation indicated that although bird hunting by the dogs had been purposeful, the reduction of overall avian population for this reason was insignificant. The ducks and sea-gulls were able to find areas suitable for nesting, but little-visited by or inaccessible to the dogs. Nevertheless, the species composition of waterfowl had been changing partially. Bean geese, pintails and greater scaups proved to be absolutely incompatible with the dogs, but long-tailed ducks proved quite resistant to dogs. The dogs never succeeded in catching grown-up birds even in the nests. Yet, the goose broods were injured despite the active defense staged by the parents. We discovered similar trends in the “green zones” near Kandalaksha City, too, and in the vicinity of large townships on the shore of the peninsula. Mass walking of police, hunting dogs, and the presence of neglected and feral dogs failed to be a critical factor serving to limit multiplication and migration stop-overs of sea-gulls and waterfowl in these zones. Given the water-logged areas and thicket, willow-tree woods on the lake shore, close to human dwellings, there may successfully nest mallard duck, whistler and tufted duck. Willow ptarmigan successfully winters and multiplies in a thick brush in years of high population. Alas, wigeon usually nesting in adjoining areas, as well as some other duck species tend to avoid such areas.
The ability of the dogs to adapt to any conditions, while getting the food they need, manifests itself well at the rookeries. The dogs from nearby settlements that visit such rookeries usually scavenge for the prey remnants of avian predators and for nestlings that fell down from steep walls. Rock ledges with thousands of nests are usually inaccessible to the dogs. However, some individuals, as it turned out, are capable of finding the approach routes to the nearest areas and of moving over the rock ledges, where kiddaw eggs become their booty. Only in rare cases, they manage to catch a heedless brood hen. The adverse impact of such raids by far exceeds the losses resulting from the eaten eggs. A panicky congregation of adult birds set off by the arrival of a dog leads to mass falls of eggs and nestlings from the rocks.
I would rather not see this
In an old comedy, when Indians were raiding a small “white” town, some town-dweller shades his parrot’s eyes, sparing him from viewing cruel manifestations of the surrounding reality. In every life, too, when we are faced with something particularly unpleasant, we all tend to “lose our eyes tight” for a while. This is exactly what some dwellers of Kandalaksha City are doing, on of the northern cities on the shore of the White Sea: they prefer to ignore blood-shedding games of ordinary urban mongrels. Here, on the shores of Kandalaksha Gulf, neglected dogs prove to themselves and to the people each year that they used to be, are and will continue to be representatives of the glorious family of predators.
In winter, while surveying on the ice the skerries of Kandalaksha Gulf, the city mongrels restore the habits of their ancestors. They are unable to get hold of an elk or a reindeer. Yet, the cases of successful driving roes to exhaustion are known all too well. These miniature deers are having a particularly bad luck. After they reach Kola Pennsula from Finland, they are left without protection of humans and, helpless in deep snow, feel the “pressure” of the dogs. In nearly all cases of roe encounters on the peninsula that are either known to us or are described in literature, the dogs are involved to a greater or lesser degree.
Besides the roes, the local urban mongrels like hunting the seals even better. In winter as well as in summer, the young individuals of ringed seal and Greenland seal are the traditional trophies of the dogs.
During winter strolls, having found a seal on the ice, the dogs use a variety of hunting tricks. Large groups may attack the seal in a simple manner: head-on. In such cases, they hardly ever succeed. At the same time, one can see coordinated actions in threesomes, and, most often in pairs. One of the dogs moving slowly in the seal’s field of vision, diverts its attention, whereas some other dog attacks the seal from behind, like a shot. In such cases, the effectiveness of dogs’ attacks was rather high. Killing a seal is no simple matter, and the dogs succeed with young animals only. Adult and massive bearded seals, Greenland seals and ringed seals do have time to escape in the water even when attacked by a group of dogs.
Having caught a young seal, the dog holds it by its hind flippers, then grips the front part of the torso. It is not uncommon for a seal in a state of shock to turn over on its back, whereupon its throat is cut immediately. More often than not, the dogs eat their prey, making no haste, literally cutting the layer of subcutaneous fat together with pieces of the hide. Once a member of the group has had its fill, it relinquishes its place to some other member. The total number of seals that died of dogs preying on others depends on the total number of seals in a particular area of the gulf. The more seals there were, the more often they died of the dogs’ fangs. Such activity of the quadrupedal predators during the winter quickly led to redistribution of seals on the gulf ice. The animals began coming out on the ice only in areas hard to reach by the dogs: near the small areas of open water in floating ice or near polynyas.
Over the long years of observations, I saw several dozens of such hunts. I regret to say that only in exceptional cases did I manage to approach the place of events with photographic and video-equipment, not scaring the dogs away. Having seen a human, they would resignedly abandon their prey. Most likely, this bespeaks of their “master’s” origin and relative fill. At times, this version was amply confirmed by the presence of a collar on a lucky “hunter”.
As the ice cover breaks up, seal hunt subsides for a while, but not for too long. Soon, at the height of the gulf, there appear young Greenland seals – gray seals. At the age of 1.5-2 months, they only begin to come to know the surrounding world, encountering for the first time in their life both the people and quadrupedal predators. A young seal that happens to be at the very edge of the shore may be easily pulled out of the water onto the shore by a large dog. Yet, in reality, it often does not have to do this. There has long been a practice of feeding the seals with fish. Once the seals have had their fill, the fall asleep on the shore and become easy prey to dog raids. The situation is compounded by the fact that some city-dwellers visit the seals in company with their pet dogs – guard, fighting breeds, hunting and decorative dogs. In most cases, these dogs do no direct harm to the seals. But after such visits, the seals get used to the dogs and do not regard them as predators. Only in rare cases, when a dog appears, the seals try to flee for their life. As a result of this, the number of seals dying from dog attacks steadily increases. Until recently, the figure was around 5 percent of the total seal population in the area, this year, it has amounted to one third of the seal population.
It is clear that by taking part in collective hunts, young dogs, feral and neglected, acquire the necessary experience. This makes it possible to preserve for years the unique hunting habits of Kandalaksha dogs behavior.
Reprinted and abridged from the National game journal “HUNT” No 9, 2005
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