Village Wildlife Reserve Or Dog Walkers Paradise?
Should smaller woodland areas near villages and towns be for pets or wildlife?
Having recently moved to a new area, I am still getting used to the local woodlands, parks, commons and footpaths close to home – but I arrived at one the other day to find that the area just outside of the car park was a dog poo hot spot!
Being a nice woodland area in a small village just a 5 or 10 minute drive from a much larger town – it seemed to attract what I call the ‘for the human’ dog walkers – which are the ‘busy’ type that think that the only reason you need to take your dog out is for a wee and poo – and they fit this ‘chore’ into a slot just before work and just after they get home.
They are also the type that think that if noone sees it or their dog does it near some trees, then they don’t have to pick it up!
I’m sure that these types of woods are found all over the country and all over the world infact – but it was funny how people reacted to the news that, thanks to a recent exchange of hands, this woodland is being converted into a nature reserve over the next year or so.
There will be heavy machinery on site to clear dangerous trees (so the site will be closed for some months) a new path for dog walkers with a big splash pool for water loving dogs (to reduce the contamination of a delicate chalk stream on site) and a poop area to reduce dog waste across the rest of the site.
The idea is that the current habitats will be enhanced to attract the wildlife that has been lost over the past 50 years or so.
The Village Meeting:
All this sounds fantastic, and I can’t wait to volunteer some of my time to help them achieve their goal – but the rest of the discussion group seemed up in arms!
The first thing they wanted to clarify was that they were a responsible dog owner – then all they talked about was where they were going to walk their dog while the site was closed and what they were supposed to do with their dog waste if there weren’t enough poo bins supplied.
Shouldn’t the owners of the land supply them with more bins? they were asking.
There wasn’t one mention of the hope of getting newts back into the pond, or clearing waste materials out of the lake to attract waterfowl. They weren’t too sure about the 4 cattle being released to keep the grass and weeds down either or even having a ‘dog friendly’ path (I mean why can’t they just walk where they want on someone else’s land that happens to be close to their front door!).
What’s Best?
So, I was stuck in the middle: annoyed at pet owners for only caring about themselves and their dogs rather than wildlife, but then asking myself where do we expect these people to walk their dogs? In the street? Driving to areas that are more delicate or currently free from dogs?
If we don’t supply a spot for them close to home to ‘ruin’ – what areas will they end up destroying instead?
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Tags: chalk stream, chalkland, Community, crested newts, dog friendly, dog poo, dog walkers, dog walking, dog waste, dogs, eco friendly, nature reserve, poo bin, reserves, responsible dog owner, rural woodland, sensitive area, uk reserves, uk village, village life, village meeting, woodland, your community, your local