Economic Impacts and Potential Mitigations of Feral Dogs’ Damages

Economic Impacts and Potential Mitigations of Feral Dogs’ (Canis lupus familiaris) Damages in the United States

Amanda Spencer

12/8/2015

Abstract

Dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) were introduced to North America 15,000 years ago. Since that time many dogs have become feral relying on garbage, livestock, crops and wild species to survive. Feral dogs cost the USA $620 million each year in damages (Bergman 2009). Dogs have a rapid reproductive rate creating a high supply of dogs disproportionate to society’s demand for dogs. As such, these surplus dogs are added to the feral dog population. Several economic solutions can reduce this inconsistency by reducing and internalizing the negative externalities for dog owners and breeders. These solutions include a tax for dogs, subsidies for spaying or neutering, and quotas for limiting both feral and domestic dogs. All of these solutions have issues, but the subsidies for spaying and neutering is the most cost effective solution. This review concludes that subsidies for spaying and neutering will best reduce the surplus domestic dogs and most stakeholders will support this solution.

Introduction

Dogs (Canis lupus familiaris), commonly called “man’s best friend,” are often ignored as a problematic invasive species. Invading species in USA causes over $120 billion per year with 42% of threatened or endangered species at risk primarily from alien-invasive species (Pimentel 2004).

Dogs originated more than 100,000 years before the present (Vilà 1997).  They traveled with humans to the new world 15,000 years ago (Vilà 1997). All over the world dogs have been breed for various purposes including guarding, hunting, sled pulling, pack animals, and racing. Since their domestication many dogs have become feral, due to the species’ rapid breeding and poor stewardship. This review will generally define feral dogs as falling into one or more of these three categories: never owned dogs that have lived their entire lives without human ownership, currently owned dogs that are allowed to roam free of constraints, and abandoned dogs that were owned, but are now not.

Feral and domestic dogs look the same, but differ in their behavior toward people. Domestic dogs usually wag their tails or exhibit a calm disposition when a human approaches, whereas most feral dogs showed highly aggressive behavior, growling, barking, and attempting to bite (Green 1994). Feral dogs are most active during dawn, dusk and night to avoid humans who frequently shoot at them (Green 1994). Feral dogs travel and hunt in packs similarly to wolves and other canids (Young 2011). As such, they make formidable predators to livestock, wildlife and humans. Feral dogs are excellent at utilizing human garbage because of their reduced aversion to humans, compared to other wild canids (Newsome 2014). The feral dogs, if they are not nutritionally limited, can produce 6-10 puppies each year (Vilà 1997). Because of the high reproductive abilities of feral dogs, and ability to utilize the urban garbage niche they can outcompete other native canids (Newsome 2014). This can cause too much predation on native populations including ground nesting birds, cattle, sheep, deer, rabbits (Carter 1990). Current threatened species that are highly preyed upon by feral dogs include: Atwater’s prairie chicken, black-footed ferrets, Hawaiian coot, Hawaiian goose, Hawaiian moorhen, Hawaiian stilt, Hawaiian duck, Sandhill cranes, western snowy plover, salt marsh harvest mouse, and Mojave Desert tortoise (Bergman 2009). Feral dogs also damage agriculture, which is where most of the feral dog costs occur (Bergman 2009).

Feral dogs cost the United States >$620 million each year from the damage to agriculture, natural resources, wildlife, livestock, domesticated animals, and humans. (Bergman 2009). In Texas >$5 million of damages occurred from livestock alone (Bergman 2009). In 1999 an estimated 15.1% of sheep losses were due to feral dogs and 15,000 goats were lost due to feral dogs (NASS 2000). Of dairy goats, 67% of attacks are from feral dogs (Hagstad 1987). Feral dogs also have a large impact on corn production in Hawaii, melons in Texas, Arizona, and New Mexico (Bergman 2009).

Human health and safety is at risk from feral dogs. 4.7 million people in the USA are bitten annually by dogs. This results in $165 million/year of direct costs of the medical attention. This cost does not account for indirect costs such as lost work or emotional trauma (Pimentel 2004). These dog attacks cause 11-14 deaths per year with 80% of them being young children (Pimentel 2004). A survey of 3238 Pennsylvania schoolchildren determined that by 12th grade, 46% of students had been bitten, and 17% of students had received medical attention for a dog bite. The children are frequently bitten on the face (Sacks 1996). The number of dog bites is under reported due to lack of reporting requirements.

Feral dogs also carry over 40 diseases (Bergman 2009). These include Rocky Mountain Fever; which is transmitted by ticks, Neospora caninum; which causes abortions in cattle (Anderson 2000), canine distemper; which is transmittable to native wildlife, and rabies; which is fatal in wild animals and humans (Bergman 2009).

This issue is unique due to the supply of feral dogs being independent of the demand. This imbalance between supply of dogs and demand of dogs has led to a surplus. Feral dogs are currently at a surplus with more dogs supplied to the social market then demanded which has led to a market failure and mismanagement of dogs. The surplus dogs are creating costly negative externalities. What economic solutions can stabilize this market?  

Economic Policy Options and Issues

To resolve this issue, the market for dogs must be stabilized and the surplus dogs removed. Currently dogs are creating greater costs to society then benefits. The costs to society must be reduced or the benefits must be increased. This review will focus on reducing costs to balance the market by focusing on internalizing negative externalities. Currently the negative externalities are internalized by the agriculture industry and health industries. The negative externalities need to be internalizing inside the dog market between the sellers or breeders and the buyers of dogs. This can be accomplished because dogs are legal private property. As such they can be transferred, excluded and these are enforceable under the United States law.

Controlling feral animals is a contested issue due to variety of stakeholders. There are many values amongst the stake holders including existence values, intrinsic values and use values. There are numerous organizations that use intrinsic values of the animals live to prevent culls of the feral dogs (Lloyd 2010). These groups include People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals, Best Friends Animal Society and Humane Society of the United States. Many dog owners have existence values for dogs running free of constraints and living a natural life. The use value holders are mainly the agriculture and health industries who are in the receiving end of the damages caused by feral dogs who devalue the dogs for the consumption of those resources.

Some economic solutions to internalize externalities include policy changes involving taxes, quotas and subsidies. For taxing, a dog-essential commodity would be taxed. However, determining that commodity is difficult. If a tax on food was implemented, less costly food would be bought which would decrease overall quality in food. If dog luxury items were taxed, the owners could switch to an alternative. Because of the large variety of alternatives, taxing dog-essential commodities will not internalize the negative externalities. If a tax on owning dogs was implemented, enforcement would be the issue. Unless a cost-effective method is used the monitoring for illegal dogs, the cost would diminish the gains from the tax. Quotas could be used for each city or county. The total dog population could be artificially restricted to reduce dogs in the area. This method would encourage citizens to reduce feral dogs in order to have more desirable dogs. However, the movement of dogs between cities would be difficult and costly to monitor.

The last economic solution is subsidies for spaying and neutering of dogs. Paying a dog-owner for the surgery would incentivize the dog owners to reduce the risk of accidental puppies. Of course, not all dogs would be sterilized under this practice, for some dog’s puppies are highly valuable. Those puppies, I hypothesize, will not likely be abandoned because of their high value and will not add to the dog surplus. The dogs of less value to society will be sterilized using the subsidy. While this method is also costly, if the cost of the subsidy is less than or equal to the agriculture, health and diseases costs, then it is beneficial. Looking at the future benefits from sterilizing domestic dogs will mean a lesser supply of dogs in the future. This supply of dogs will overall increase in price because only the valuable dogs would not be sterilized. Because of the increase of dog price, some people will turn to inexpensive dogs in shelters. This will reduce the over-crowded shelters of the unwanted dogs or tamable feral puppies. This solution is the most feasible and cost effective, as instead of paying damages the government is solving the problem.

Role of Economic analysis

Economic analysis explains the fundamental reason feral dogs have become an issue in North America. The supply is higher than the demand creating a surplus of dogs. The economic analysis shows us that the dogs supply themselves, unless restricted, at a higher rate than society demands. As such these surplus animals are without homes and join feral dog packs. In order to stabilize the market for dogs, either the supply must be reduced or the demand must be increased. This is done by internalizing the negative externalities into the dog market.

Economics examines human behavior in response to multiple ends and scare resources in how to allocate scare resources. In this situation, the dogs are not scarce, but the resources to manage them are scarce. Using economic analysis the best use of these resources can be examined including the potential usefulness of each option.

Economic analysis also integrates the values of the stakeholders. Because the stakeholders involved in feral dog issues are so diverse the best solution must function within all values. These stakeholders are both mutualists and utilitarian. Evaluating their values can allow for an effective implementation of policy that will successfully stabilize the dog market.

Because the fundamental issue of feral dogs is an economic issue of surplus, the use of economic analysis must be used to balance the issue using economic solutions.

Conclusions

While biological factors play a large role in the supply of dogs, the role of economics can mitigate this issue by decreasing supply by economic solutions. Of the economic solutions proposed the most cost effective method is subsidizing the spaying and neutering of dogs. This method will decrease the supply of unwanted dogs and increase the average value of dogs. This method will balance the supply of dogs with the demand of the dogs which will decrease the surplus dogs and will provide homes for offspring of shelter animals. However, even with this method the feral dog population that currently exists will need external management to reduce their numbers.

I recommend changing the legal nature of feral dogs from being managed by cities and counties as domesticated dogs to the management of wildlife professionals. Because the feral dogs act as a canid predator and impact wildlife and agriculture, they should be treated as a nuisance invasive species and managed as such by wildlife professionals.

This review concludes that subsidies for spaying and neutering will best reduce the surplus domestic dogs, and policy should be changed for feral dogs to be considered invasive wild animals. These policy changes will reduce the dogs becoming feral and reduce the feral dogs currently destroying the United States agriculture, wildlife, and human health.

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