Dog Waste Water Emergency (continued from page 32)
activity levels of creek chub. These findings indicate that uncollected dog waste, whether fresh or dried, has the potential to significantly impact the aquatic environment and the fish communities within. While to some members of the public uncollected dog waste may not seem like a relevant problem, to others the impact it has on public spaces is already well known. Every year hundreds of kilograms of dried dog waste is often found uncollected in urban parks and along trails and beaches, translating to potentially thousands of kilograms of faecal loading per year. As at least a partial result public beaches, ponds and streams increasingly test higher for faecal coliform bacteria than the standard safe levels for human recreational use and toxic algal blooms containing compounds such as microcystins and botulinum have become a more frequent occurrence. Despite the potentially direct ecological and economic repercussions, this study showed for the first time the impact that the global dog waste management problem can have on aquatic communities. The effects demonstrated here are likely to not only be more severe for less pollution-tolerant species but are likely to become more apparent for many urban fish populations and other aquatic communities as the dog population, the amount of urbanization, the relative prevalence of impervious surfaces and climate change all continue to increase.
Examples of subdermal lesions of different severities observed on Semotilus atromaculatus
Full study, with complete data sets and references, is available via Journal of Fish Biology (online link below): https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/jfb.14685
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Ontario Parks Association
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