Keep dogs on leads 1st March - 31st July to protect groundnesting birds

[Scrowy]

This is my (now) annual reminder.

If you are walking across farm land or open access land with your dogs please PLEASE keep the dog on a lead during ground nesting season.

your lovely dog does not mean any harm but startling the parent birds off the nest leaves the nest vulnerable to other predators. Crows, stoats, weasels, foxes, badgers, gulls, squirrels (they love eggs!), magpies, rats etc all take advantage of a unattended nest.

It is the law to keep dogs on a lead on open access land (so most National park land during 1st March and the 31st July.

it's also lambing time in many places and sheep worrying is on the rise.

thankyou

Hello morning crowd.

It's going to be another sunny day. Wonderful lambing weather.

Please keep your dogs on leads when out walking in the countryside this Easter and until the end of July to help give ground nesting birds a fighting chance.

@Scrowy I don't mean crows or gulls. The worst damage to the environment is creeping development, destruction of scrub and change of habitat all of which drive birds away and are caused by human activity. There's also bird flu which is drastically reducing numbers. Then there is the natural tendency of birds to build nests in the stupidest places : on top of fence posts, below the tide line , on paths. So when all this is factored in dogs probably don't help, but they are not the deadliest scourge of birds!
Anyone walking their dog in the open countryside without a lead at this time of year is pretty thoughtless though- unless they have total control over the dog there are just too many temptations.

Cats should be kept indoors/in a catio/cat proofed garden at all times. It's appalling how many millions of birds and small mammals are killed by cats each year.

It's not an either/or though, is it? With all these other pressures on wildlife, it's ridiculous for individuals not to control the one thing they individually easily can.

It's absolutely not either / or but sadly the people themselves probably disturb the birds without the help of dogs @ErrolTheDragon

Walkers should have dogs under control as livestock worrying is a huge issue. Curlew numbers have declined horrendously but I don't think dogs can be fully blamed, ironically less intensive farming and reduced stock numbers ( less poo and fewer insects) have probably been a big factor.
It's just another thing that makes responsible dog owners feel bad while people who don't care/ think they're the Special One won't listen anyway and continue to leave poo bags in trees !!

I'm not trying to make people feel bad.

I'm reminding them of a very good law that's in place for the protection of wildlife that is almost entirely unknown about.

Easter holidays is always my reminder to spread the word as it coincides with lambing, lots of birdy nesting active and a sudden increase in human traffic in the fells and dales.

What do growers do to avoid skylark nests? No curlews here but so many skylarks. I have severe doubts that the machinery does anything to avoid spraying & rolling over nests in the fields.

Given the ridiculous numbers of dogs every single sodding where, it's about time it was mandatory for them to be on lead at all times in public. Too many twat owners, too many sheep and lambs savaged, (and people killed/savaged, but that is soon forgotten), people like me - disabled, a bit wobbly on crutches, cannot go on a beach, in a park etc now as I know I will have dogs running and jumping at me, as I try to avoid the piles of shit.

Some of the areas the OP is referring to won't have crops and machinery anyway. There's more awareness of leaving hay meadows for longer before cutting, early mowing has been one of the issues affecting the numbers of some birds eg lapwings.

If there are plenty around then whatever they are doing must be working.

If they are in a mid tier scheme they may well be doing something along these lines

https://www.gov.uk/countryside-stewardship-grants/skylark-plots-ab4

Farmers ARE doing what they can. It's unwritten in every stewardship agreement we enter into.

This thread isn't about what farmers can do it's about what the general public can also do .

Keep dogs on leads during nesting season.

It's not unwritten. Its very much written!

Here is the actual law

Dogs on open access land

You must keep your dog on a lead no more than 2 metres long on open access land:

• between 1 March and 31 July - to protect ground-nesting birds
• at all times around livestock

On land next to the England Coast Path you must keep your dog under close control.

There may be other local or seasonal restrictions. These do not apply to public rights of way or assistance dogs.

www.gov.uk/right-of-way-open-access-land/use-your-right-to-roam#:~:text=between%201%20March%20and%2031%20July%20%2D%20to%20protect%20ground%2Dnesting%20birds

It must be galling for responsible farmers who are making adjustments (presumably often with some cost to them) if their efforts are undone by completely unnecessary ignorance or people thinking it doesn't matter what their dog does.

I'm afraid your comment is made from ignorance. It is most definitely not ridiculous to require dogs to be kept on leads in order to help protect wildlife!

Yes, people have been walking dogs for decades and, yes, our bird population is dwindling. The presence of dogs causes birds to fly away from their nests and thereby leave the eggs and chicks vulnerable to predators.

There are more dogs now in this country than ever before. Dog-walking businesses have taken off (these did not exist until about 20 years ago) and we now have people attempting to walk large numbers of dogs all at once.

Our local National Trust warden tells me that dogs ultimately kill more birds than cats do. People don't realise it because their dogs don't usually catch the birds and bring them to the owners, like cats often do (although dogs do eat the eggs and might kill chicks). The birds mostly die due to the disturbance that dogs cause when they run around off-lead.

It's vital to the survival of the ground-nesting birds that dogs are kept well away from nesting sites. People who walk dogs in the countryside need to be aware of the impact that their activity can have on our precious wildlife and take the appropriate steps to minimise it.

Please be aware that it's not merely a request, it's a legal requirement. Dogs taken onto open access land between 1st March and 31st July must be kept on a short lead of no more than 2 metres at all times. This is also a year-round requirement when walking near livestock.

Good luck getting dog owners to comply. I'm afraid the majority won't.

I'm in Scotland so this law doesn't apply in the same way @80sMum
Everyone should act responsibly when they take dogs into the countryside and if they are found worrying stock there are some huge penalties including the right of the farmer to shoot the dog.
But to be fair I don't think we can pin the decline in birds on dogs as there really isn't a huge increase in overall dog ownership, despite what we are led to believe in the media www.pdsa.org.uk/what-we-do/pdsa-animal-wellbeing-report/paw-report-2022/pet-populations-across-the-uk
It's definitely more likely to be down to decline in insect life, pollution and habitat loss.

Around here you need to protect your dogs from the vicious gulls - draws blood on my ddog regularly who isn't interested in birds anyway (he isn't stupid he knows they have wings) when he's lying in our little garden. Ditto walking along the seafront (on a lead always for medical reasons)

Does anyone remember the press report about 20-25 years ago when word got out that a rare species couple had visited the UK and was ground nesting?

Numerous press reporters had turned up to take photographs and were desperately scouring a wide gravelly area to locate the well-camouflaged birds and the nest. One photographer spotted what happened and snapped another reporter who had completely missed the nest and stepped into it crushing eggs and all. It was a Sun reporter if I remember correctly.

But to be fair I don't think we can pin the decline in birds on dogs as there really isn't a huge increase in overall dog ownership, despite what we are led to believe in the media

The type of dog ownership has changed though.

Lots of people now having 'working breed' types but no work for them to do, requiring long runs out off lead in wide open spaces.

Because sheep have largely been taken off open access land in the name of conservation people feel much happier to let dogs off the lead because they dont see sheep.

You see it on here all the time, people believing they are doing the right thing taking dogs onto open access land and letting them run for miles off lead because they are away from farm animals.

This thread is simply to raise awareness for those who haven't realised that off lead dogs do have an impact on other animals too.

Bumping this thread due to the really important message.

OP is this also for your shooting income?

Have you mixed me up with someone else?

We are tenant farmers, we have sheep and cows.

We pay rent to our landlord who also has absolutely nothing to do with shooting (or farming for that matter).

The fell we are commoners on is owned by a large estate entirely separate to us and our landlord. They also don't own any commercial shoots as far as I know and the fell hasn't even had a game keeper since about 2005.

I really care about ground nesting birds.

curlews in particular.

Problem is that if I start a thread out of curiousity what farmers do about skylarks, it will be shut down as a TAAT. And really I'm just curious. I often walk on foothpaths across cereal crop fields with competing skylarks in multiple directions.

I think that skylark scheme is an optional opt-in thing, a way for farmers to get an extra subsidy IF they leave a patch of land undisturbed. But I know a lot of wheat or barley fields that don't seem like they have any undisturbed areas. They look like completely planted fields.

the skylarks are amazing & must be doing well because they sing January to October here. I fear their territories are highly disturbed by farming itself, though.

We also, down the road, have a quarry proposal in a woodland that seems to harbour owls & buzzards.

@lljkk I'm not an expert as we have zero arable crops but I think it's to do with the timing of the plantings and the harvests rather than specifically leaving patches.

my general rule of thumb is if it's working don't try and put a fence round it or change what you are doing in the name of protection.

technically it's opt in. But realistically it isn't.

No, was just a query. Where I am in Scotland all these notices are up to protect the pheasant nesting for them to grow up safely just to be hunted by dogs and then shot.