Stray dogs are endangering the very rare Balkan lynx. Our partners in North Macedonia are working closely with veterinarians to solve this largely unknown conservation problem with an effective yet animal-friendly measure.
Looks harmless, but can become an ecological problem: a stray dog in North Macedonia
If you had to describe North Macedonia with one sound, it would probably be the barking of dogs. Whether in busy squares in the country’s capital Skopje or in remote villages: dogs can be found almost anywhere in North Macedonia, many of them more or less feral street dogs. For some years now, biologists and conservationists have been aware of the fact that this ubiquity of dogs poses a serious problem for nature conservancy.
In the country’s cities, the dogs are mainly feeding on waste, which is available in large quantities in urban areas. In rural regions, however, this food supply proves insufficient. Here, the strays move into the nearby woods and supplement their diet with wildlife.
Camera trap images like these prove that the strays also move into the forests.
Feral dogs in North Macedonia feeding on a carcass. They may have preyed on the animal themselves, but it is also quite possible that it was a lynx kill.
This is were the danger for the Balkan lynx begins. “For years we assumed that the biggest threats facing the Balkan lynx are poaching and habitat destruction,” says Dime Melovski, biologist at our North Macedonian partner organisation MES. “Then we realised that a third threat had sprung up below our radar: an increasing number of images taken by our camera traps showed stray dogs feeding on deer carcasses and other wildlife.”
The strays are double food competitors for the Balkan lynx. On the one hand, the feral dogs themselves hunt down deer and hares when they are prowling the woods. Because game density in North Macedonia is significantly lower than in Germany for example, every wild animal killed by dogs means potentially less prey for lynxes.
On the other hand, the strays are consuming deer carcasses killed by lynxes. “Balkan lynx do not devour a slain deer all at once; they return to the carcass again and again over several days to continually feed on it,” explains Lisa Leschinski, project manager at EuroNatur. “The stray dogs with their excellent noses smell the carrion and eat up the lynx’s supplies. This is fatal, because it ruins the lynxes’ hunting success,” says Lisa Leschinski. According to the biologist, “a stable population of Balkan lynxes could possibly cope with this, but we are not anywhere near this point.” Probably less than 50 animals of this endangered subspecies of the Eurasian lynx are roaming the forests of the southwestern Balkans.
“They are like wolves”
Camera trap images are not Dime Melovski’s only proof of the massive food competition from strays. He once witnessed himself a feral dog killing a doe. “My colleagues and I were unable to intervene. The animal’s hunting instinct was simply too strong,” says Melovski.
The strays are actively hunting wildlife. Sometimes dogs even form packs and behave like wolves. The dormant genes of their ancestors are reviving then.
Dime Melovski, MES Biologist
The stray dogs do not only pose a danger for wildlife populations and constitute food competitors for the Balkan lynx, they can also kill livestock and sometimes even threaten humans. Hundreds of cases of bitten people are reported every year; there were some fatal cases where kids were killed by strays. Urgent action is needed, but a lot of North Macedonians are not even aware of the issue. Although the stray dog problem is well known, especially in the country's cities, people in the rural regions of North Macedonia are more accustomed to the presence of feral dogs and are less bothered by them. This is why, since the problem became known, MES has been working to educate the public. Two years ago, our partners published a documentation showing how stray dogs can harm wildlife and people in rural areas.
A vet explains how the transmitter collars work to Dime Melovski (right) from our partner organisation MES. In this case, it was possible to finance the tracking of at least two released dogs. They will provide important data on the radius in which the animals move.
In order to get to grips with the problem posed by the strays in the long run, the lynx conservationists in North Macedonia have begun to capture and neuter feral dogs. In doing this, our partners are closely collaborating with veterinarians.
Lisa Leschinski was involved in such a campaign last year. She recounts the situation: “When I arrived on the ground, there was a lot going on: several dogs which had been examined and neutered by the vet were released again – back to the place they had been captured from. Two more animals were being caught at the same time. The aim was to neuter as many dogs as possible in one area. The animals were easy to catch, they are still very much accustomed to humans.”
“Ideally, the released dogs should also be microchipped so that we have an overview of all animals already neutered,” says Dime Melovski. “The government should also provide more funding for animal shelters so that dog owners can leave their pets there instead of simply abandoning them when they no longer want them. But we are a long way from that at the moment. The state does not even subsidise the neutering of strays,” Dime Melovski criticises.
Probably fewer than 50 specimens of the Balkan lynx roam the forests of North Macedonia, Albania and Kosovo.
Wouldn’t it be easier and much cheaper to kill the strays? “It may seem that way at first glance,” Dime says, "but that would be heartless. These dogs are animals, they deserve better treatment. Moreover, there would probably be a huge public outcry if we were to kill the dogs.”
This has also been evident to EuroNatur project manager Lisa Leschinski on the ground: “A restaurant owner whose kitchen scraps routinely go to the strays was outraged that we simply took the dogs away. We were only able to calm the man down when we told him that the animals were not put down but merely neutered and then released again.”
Release neutered stray dogs
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In the short term, this does not solve the problem of strays as food competitors for the Balkan lynx. Neutered or not, the feral dogs will continue to hunt down deer and other potential prey and to feed off lynx-killed carcasses. But now that the dogs will no longer be able to reproduce, the problem will be resolved in the long term – provided the measures are implemented throughout the country. “According to one calculation, the stray dog population of a region decreases if 70–75 percent of the animals are neutered,” says Dime Melovski. A start has been made, but our partners in lynx conservation still have a lot of work to do in the years to come.
