The STRAYS team have been back in Lviv carrying out mark-recapture dog surveys! Calculating how many animals live in an area is a core research method for many biologists working in the management of animal populations. Many different mathematical methods are available to calculate animal numbers, but usually these require a lot of time, people and cost to collect the data. We have been working together with local organisation, animal-id.info, to find a time-efficient and accurate method to record information on the number of dogs in cities around Europe. Animal-id.info use volunteers to count dogs and using their mobile app, they have been able to calculate the number of dogs in numerous cities across Ukraine and in other countries. The Animal-id.info app uses an automated data processing system to calculate the number of dogs in an area from the data that volunteers enter into the app on specific counting days. Animal-id.info use the World Animal Protection (WAP) approved method to calculate the number of dogs. This software and technology makes the counting of animals quick and cost-efficient. Animal-id.info have been able to track changes in the numbers of stray dogs in numerous cities over the last few years using this method. The STRAYS team have also been using the Animal-id.info software for our own data collection. We have now used the animal-id.info app to aid data collection in Italy and Ukraine and it has made the process smooth and easy!
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At the beginning of July the STRAYS team returned to Pescara, Abruzzo (Italy) to continue the long-term mark-recapture study of the local free-roaming dog population. This is the second of five data collections which will take place over a one year period in this area. Many of the dogs sighted during the first survey in April were sighted again (including the sleepy dog photographed in an earlier blog post). They were easily recognised, despite some shedding off their coats to deal with the warmer temperatures at this time of year. This is a photographic mark-recapture study, meaning that all dogs observed are catalogued so we can track their presence/absence in future studies. Using mathematical formula, this method allows us to estimate how many dogs live in this area and how many dogs enter/leave during the one year study.
The STRAYS team have now arrived in Lviv and are looking forward to seeing if the same individuals are sighted in the study areas here again! Part two of the STRAYS fieldwork has now started! This time, the team have travelled to Lviv (Ukraine) to collect data and observe the city's street dogs. The team did not have to wait long to see their first dog, shortly after arriving the black and white dog (bottom left) was spotted stealing some meat from the rubbish bin! In Lviv, the local Community Enterprise, in addition to the Stray Animal Care team at Vier Pfoten, capture, neuter and release/rehome (CNR) free-roaming dogs in this area. After capture, the dogs are marked with a coloured ear tag to show their neutering/vaccination status. The team have been surveying these local dogs early in the morning, noting those which have been through the CNR programme and recording information about the dog's location and condition. The team have now become familiar with a few of the local dogs, spotting them on more than one occasion. The team will spend another week in Lviv, before returning to the University of Leeds to analyse the collected data - more updates to come!
Most people working in research understand that the work often includes hours spent behind a desktop, with your head stuck in books or staring at excel worksheets. It is incredibly rewarding when you can get away from the desk and actually spend time with the animals you are studying. This is especially rewarding when you start to recognise individuals, how they interact with each other and you see their characters coming out! STRAYS has now begun a project in Italy where we will be studying the community dogs over the next year. Over the last few days, the team have found some charming dogs within the Pescara Province of Abruzzo. The community dogs here are under the responsibility of the town mayor and after the dogs have been neutered and vaccinated by the local veterinary health unit, they are released back to their territory. The team have been conducting surveys of these dogs in the early mornings, at a time when the town is most peaceful. During our surveys, we have seen the dogs travelling around the town, using pedestrian crossings(!), sniffing and interacting with the other community dogs along their way. One particular dog which has charmed us, is this hairy sleepy boy (photograph below). He was very relaxed and mostly slept as we observed him. We have seen this dog in a couple of surveys now and it will be interesting to see if he is still here when we return in a few months!
The STRAYS team will also be studying the street dogs of Ukraine in a few weeks, so watch this space for more updates as the study progresses! I have always found it interesting how different the onomatopoeias used to describe animal noises are in different languages. And so, I made it a little side project during my pilot field trip to Bulgaria to find out exactly what noise a Bulgarian dog makes!
The (true!) purpose of my trip was to carry out a pilot study and meet the Four Paws stray animal care team, who work in a clinic on the outskirts of Sofia City neutering and providing veterinary care to owned and stray dogs in this region. In the UK, if a dog were to roam the streets without an owner the dog might be thought of as a "lost pet". However, in Bulgaria, it is not unusual to regularly see dogs freely roaming the streets. A proportion of these dogs have owners, however many are stray. In my pilot field trip I have been testing out methods which will allow us to estimate the size of this free-roaming dog population, as well as giving us information about how many of these dogs are neutered, how healthy they are, along with other demographic data. This meant pretty unsociable 5am street surveys to count and record this information! However, the early starts were worth it to observe these animals at a time when the city was at its most peaceful. Overall, the pilot trip was a success and planning for future field trips have commenced. Watch this space! And the noise that a Bulgarian dog makes? Not too dissimilar to our barking dogs in the UK - "баф баф" (or baf baf)! With the peaceful Adriatic Sea to the right and the stunning Gran Sasso Mountain Range on the left, it is hard to imagine being stressed when this is your working environment - and this was my working environment during my week of training at Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale dell'Abruzzo e del Molise (IZSAM) in Abruzzo, Italy. During this week I was introduced to the exciting and important activities that take place at IZSAM. I was presented with information about IZSAM's role as OIE collaborating centre for animal welfare and as a National Reference Centre for Urban Veterinary Hygiene and Non-Epidemic Emergencies. I received training on the Qualitative Behavioural Assessment for sheltered dogs and was taught about the valuable findings of the Shelter Quality Protocol and the human-animal relationship in long term dog shelters. The team at IZSAM also arranged for me to visit local dog shelters, visit the farm at Colleatterrato and meet professionals involved in dog population management. I visited both Pescara's Local Health Unit and the long-term shelter in Montesilvano, where I had the chance to learn about and discuss the overall dog population management situation in Italy. In addition to meeting the excellent team at Torre del Cerrano (which is literally a castle on the beach), I was also able to meet the experts working at the IZSAM headquarters in Teramo. The professionals here provided me with guidance for my upcoming fieldwork in terms of epidemiological approaches to animal sampling and also introduced me to the technology available at the institute. Overall, it was an extremely productive week at IZSAM and I really look forward to collaborating with IZSAM in the future - and of course travelling back to this stunning location! The stray dog project (and my PhD!) officially began on the 23rd of January. The beginning of this week marked my four-month anniversary - and what an exciting time it has been so far! Since beginning, I have settled into life in Leeds, attended animal welfare conferences in Birmingham and Brussels, become familiar with the literature around dog population management (after searching through the 3000 articles which resulted from a systematic review!) and I'm planning my first field trip to Bulgaria.
This project is funded by Four Paws International and I will soon be joining their stray animal care team at their clinic in Sofia, Bulgaria. During this field trip I will be carrying out a pilot study collecting data on dog population demographics and public attitude towards stray dogs. Having never travelled to this part of the world before, I'm excited for the field trip and also, to see what data I collect while I am there. However, before I set off for Bulgaria, I will be travelling next week to Italy to train with our collaborating institution the Istituto Zooprofilattico Sperimentale dell'Abruzzo e del Molise (IZSAM) in the beautiful location of Pineto! Lauren |
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