Peeps,

I have known for a while that someone seems to leave food and water out on the Windmill Walk (off road) just behind the fenced in "exhibition" area around the Windturbine for the pack of strays that hangs around there (and around the youth centre). Not only are these dogs agreesive, I think leaving food out encourages them to hang around in places where they become a real nuisance and territorial. I have spoken to the local animal welfare organisation and no one has owned up to leaving the food, so I must presume that there is a (misguided) philantropist who has decided to do this off their own back. Although I can see that this is being done because that individual is clearly an animal lover and wants to help, I think it is shortsighted and actually creates a problem.

First, it is a nuisance for anyone who has a dog like mine, or a beagle..... my dog (being a Retrieve Mix and greedy to boot) tends to scoff whatever is left out if not stopped and sometime it is impossible to stop her.

Last Saturday she managed to eat 3.5 bowls of the food. And that was not the first time apparently (not that my helper owned up to that one).

A friend of mine has a beagle and had to have his stomach opened up because it twisted due to the amount of food he ate.... now I dont know how much food that beagle ate, but I am sure my Greedy Guts would not stop until she injured herself. So besides the vetinary / monetary implications, it could also kill....

I would be grateful if something could be done to stop this indescriminate feeding so that we can enjoy the walks without having to worry about our dogs gorging themselves....!

Any ideas?
Tessa

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T. Clipper

Not to mention that leaving metal tins on the paths is (hopefully) a punishable offence.

Well, I might have a good idea on who's putting out the food for the feral dogs up there, having seen some of them myself, but let me confirm first by asking around....

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Dear Tessa and Anton,

Many points to answer here so this is going to be quite a long post - please bear with me.

1. I am the principal offender though many friends have also helped. When we started these feeding stations, we planned them to be there only a few months. Circumstances out of our control have caused us to continue much longer. Indeed it is probably time to stop.

2. Dogs do often travel long distances to find food but the Windmill dogs are not at all aggressive - in fact I am sure you have never seen them. Ferals avoid humans and are not aggressive. You are confusing them with the 3 dogs who hang around the Youth Hostel. These dogs used to be feral and avoid humans but they have been befriended by people at the youth hostel and now consider the youth hostel their home and territory. They have indeed become a problem - the warden there has now agreed to keep them locked up. If he does not, AFCD will undoubtedly take them off to be killed.

3. The reasons for feeding the ferals at that place are:
to keep them from feeding at the bins on the beach and urban areas
to habituate them to a place where we can easily bring traps.

4. We have been grappling with the feral dog problem for ten years now. With a little cooperation from AFCD, we could already have had this problem well controlled and could be well on the way to eliminating the ferals altogether. I stress that no one wants those dogs to be there. The only argument is as to which method of control works. We believe in TNR; AFCD believes in Catch and Kill. The pros and cons are set out clearly elsewhere. But bear in mind that AFCD's very expensive killing system has been trying its best to eliminate these dogs for the last 50 years - yet now we have more than ever.

Initially we had the cooperation of AFCD and were lent traps by AFCD and SPCA. We estimate that we had desexed about half of the feral dogs when four years ago AFCD had a change of management and decided to cease cooperation. Without their cooperation we could not continue to trap. We managed to keep the feral population from expanding by searching out the dog nests and taking the pups for adoption. We have not been able to do this for the last year because all the foster homes are full and we have nowhere to put any more pups.

For all these years we, SPCA, SAA and others have been urging AFCD to at least try TNR. They have at last agreed to allow SPCA to do a trial TNR on Lamma (though only at Lo So Shing). There is one last hurdle to be crossed - the Islands District Council has to approve. The proposal will probably be put to the IDC in May. Ms Yu Lai Fun's vote will be crucial.

5. Even if the TNR Trial is approved and eventually starts this summer or autumn, there is going to be big trouble this year. Two factors are going to collide with, I fear, seriously unpleasant results.
1. All the feral puppies that we did not collect last year have already reached maturity and will be producing pups in the next few months.
2. An explosion is occurring in the numbers of people using the hills. Bikers, joggers, walkers are combining to cause the trails to become crowded and vastly increase the chances of dog - human interaction. In addition, many of these new hill users have no idea how to deal with feral dogs (eg waving a stick instead of retreating slowly and quietly).

From all the above I hope you can see that this is not simply a matter of a pet dog over-eating or dog bowls being left under a bush.

Please everyone do your best to persuade the powers to get the TNR trial under way. Killing by shooting, starving or lethal injection is never going to solve this problem.

In the meantime, I will move the Windmill feeding station to a more remote location. But if AFCD and SPCA do not move in to help soon, I will have to give up. Feeding without desexing causes the population to increase - we have to get the trapping and desexing started without further delay.

John.

Thank you John, having read your post I feel bad for harping on about my Greedy Boots eating the food for the ferral dogs that you are trying to help....

Just to say - I appreciate the work you are doing and support it wholeheartedly. The proposed TNR program is the only solution worth considering and as such I have supported various organisations which are behind it such as HKDR

Thank you for moving the food station, lets hope that my dog does not sniff the next location out....

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T. Clipper

Thank you for your understanding!

Hi John,

Thanks for your work with the dogs on the hills - one question - why does capture and kill not work in drastically reducing the wild dog population ? not saying it should be done, i dont mind the dogs myself and a humane method like TNR should be a preferable way to deal with them - I just cant work out the reason why capture & kill is not more effective than TNR ? The only reason I can think of is that AFCD never manage to get all the dogs and in a year the population is back up through breeding - but then that would be the same for TNR wouldnt it ?

So my question is - Removing the humane aspect from this problem - what makes TNR more effective than capture and kill - its driving me round the bend trying to work it out so please enlighten me or I will not get any work done today !!

It is actually a simple matter of mathematics. To eliminate the feral dogs by Catch and Kill, it is necessary to catch 100%. As you rightly say, there is an initial visible difference if they kill enough but, if they leave even one breeding couple, the problem will be back to where it was within 2 or 3 years. These dogs have so many excellent hiding places up in the hills that 100% is almost impossible to achieve.The beauty of Trap, Neuter and Return is that only 70% have to be desexed - that is achievable. We amateurs could have achieved this target if we had been allowed to continue our work.
Long term Lamma residents must have observed our work with the feral cats. Ten years ago, the whole island was hotching with cats - many diseased, injured and starving. We achieved 90 - 100% in some areas leading to their rapid elimination but have slowed down the programme in recent years in response to community requests to leave some. The ones that are left are no longer considered a nuisance.
But with dogs it will be necessary to maintain the desexed percentage at 70% until all are gone - there is no place in our modern world for feral dogs.
For further background, please see:
http://programme.rthk.hk/rthk/tv/player ... channel=tv
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EyX5Zo2ww00

You have even doing an amazing job John. It angers me so much that all of your hard work,, with others, has gone to waste. I intend to go into whatshernames office and tell her that I think she should support this. Do you think this would help or would it annoy her more and make her more determined?

I have no idea!
Can someone tell us the key to her understanding?

Thanks John, I think i get it now.

BTW, the new place for the food station...? My Greedy Boots has found it.... I think this dog is destined to become a food sniffer dog at the airport.... Somehow I must harness this fantastic nose.

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T. Clipper

Thank you so much if you asked him to do that; I've been passing this place several times in the last few days and indeed they're not a threat anymore.