Harm caused by ignoring 'Keep Dogs Close By' Notices in Woodland

My full attention was given to the beautiful scene before me. I did not hear, or expect, this greyhound running towards my back until the last moment and narrowly missed stepping into its path, as it was running at full speed. A friend's aunt died when she was knocked down by an irresponsible dog owner. This was one of a number of dogs running around, out of control, during the weekend causing disturbance to wildlife and to people enjoying a quiet woodland walk. I noted that there were no fungi in areas frequented by dog walkers: Research at Burnham Beeches in the Chilterns estimated that 50 tonnes of dog poo and 30 tonnes of dog wee were deposited on this Special Area of Conservation, every year - that easily adds up to thousands of tonnes polluting nature reserves, woodlands and wildflower meadows nationally! Please keep your dog on a short lead. Taking your dog for a walk in a nature reserve could harm biodiversity because its faeces and urine bring in excess nitrogen and phosphorus to the ecosystem.
While the effects of dogs on wildlife, through disease transmission and disturbance, have been well-studied, little is known about the impact of their waste.
To investigate, Pieter De Frenne at Ghent University in Belgium and his colleagues monitored the number of dogs at four sites in nature reserves less than 5 kilometres from the centre of Ghent between February 2020 and June 2021. They included forests, grassland and a meadow that were both popular for recreation and considered important for biodiversity.
In total, the researchers counted 1629 dogs across the sites, which corresponded to 1530 dogs per hectare per year. They assumed dogs spent one hour at the two larger sites and half an hour at the two smaller ones, on average. Using known values of nitrogen and phosphorus concentrations in dog faeces and urine, they then calculated the amounts that dogs would have brought into these ecosystems.
They estimate that dogs bring 5 kilograms of phosphorus per hectare per year and 11 kilograms of nitrogen per hectare per year into suburban nature reserves. www.newscienti...