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Feral dogs: a proxy for wolves? Or an invasive species; In many areas where there were once wolves, there are now packs of feral dogs. Are they invasive, or are they a wolf proxy?
Topic Started: Apr 8 2014, 04:31 PM (1,294 Views)
Colubrid
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In my opinion, feral dogs are a good proxy for wolves in regions where the wolves have been displaced. In my current location in Texas, for example, they help to keep overpopulated deer and invasive wild boar/feral hogs in check. Also, they technically are a wolf, hence their classification as canis lupus familiaris. Your thoughts and opinions?
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maker
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Proxy.
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Mesopredator
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Since there are canids almost everywhere, they can hardly be invasive. I deem it thus very unlikely that prey populations are negatively affected. It is however possible they harm native predators by competing with them.

Having said so, they do classify more as proxy.
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Hybrid
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Well, They do work. But do they do what the wolves do hunt the weak sick and injured instead of the healthy?
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maker
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Wolves don't specifically hunt sick/old/injured, they will hunt any animal that are most vulnerable, eg. young animals in addition to these.
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hulaguHan
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good thread.

some wildlife lovers are stupid. in turkey, they even say shepherd dogs must not be free in the wild due to hunting deers,rabbits etc.

if a dog can manage to live in the wild,it's part of nature i think.
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Mesopredator
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maker
Mar 23 2015, 09:22 PM
Wolves don't specifically hunt sick/old/injured, they will hunt any animal that are most vulnerable, eg. young animals in addition to these.
Add exhausted male deer in rut to that.
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Cape Leopard
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I don't know. To the best of my knowledge, most feral dogs are simply scavengers, with only a few populations in specific areas that are notably active predators, such as that place in India for example.
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Molosser
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If the region where they roam once had wolves then they're a proxy, otherwise they're invasive.
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Mesopredator
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Cape Leopard
Mar 25 2015, 12:49 AM
I don't know. To the best of my knowledge, most feral dogs are simply scavengers, with only a few populations in specific areas that are notably active predators, such as that place in India for example.
True.

I want to add that feral dogs, if they hunt, take more smaller prey. We could also debate if those that rely on scavenging are actually feral, or semi-feral.
To me, a true feral dog would be one that has "rewilded" in the sense that it can sustain itself indepently. Scavenging on human refuse alone is not a good criterion, as bears in Romania, wolves in Italy and hyenas in Ethiopia show; all wild animals living largely of human refuse.

Molosser
 
If the region where they roam once had wolves then they're a proxy, otherwise they're invasive.

While I understand what you are hinting at that alone is not such a good argument; if not proxy, must be invasive. By this statement, the dingo is invasive. With that, I am not stating that dingos are feral dogs, for what it is they are to me fully naturalised ferals; wild. However, there have never roamed any wolves in Australia only the marsupial wolf - as I call it - which could be ecologically similar.

The dingo is fully anthropogenic.
Edited by Mesopredator, Mar 25 2015, 02:15 AM.
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Molosser
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^introducing a large canid to a region that didn't have large canids in recent history is introducing an invasive species imho
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Mesopredator
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Molosser
Mar 25 2015, 02:26 AM
^introducing a large canid to a region that didn't have large canids in recent history is introducing an invasive species imho
Ok, let me get this right? You are saying that introducing a species to a region without members of that species family in recent history are invasive species. While it is correct to say that the likelihood of that species becoming invasive, I don't think that those facts make the species invasive, just non-native. The species potential for becoming an invasive species is high, but that doesn't make them already invasive.

Because, invasion biologists agree that not all non-native species become invasive, only a small percentage. A lot of introductions of non-native species do fail. In New Zealand they tried to introduce raccoons, whom have no recent history in New Zealand, and it failed. Raccoons in Europe do have a past history in Europe, or at least the family, but not in recent history and there is no consensus whatever it is invasive here. Some do, not all. Non-native is not equal to invasive.

Long story short:
Quote:
 
^introducing a large canid to a region that didn't have large canids in recent history is introducing a potential invasive species
This might be nitpicking, but you can't tell before hand, a priori, if something is invasive. The likelihood or potential for it becoming invasive does increase when there are no members of the species family. But within a species family there are those who could become invasive, and those whom impact would be low.
Edited by Mesopredator, Mar 25 2015, 02:54 AM.
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