Owned dog population size and ownership patterns in Costa Rica.

Dogs (Canis lupus familiaris) are one of the most common pets around the world but ownership patterns and human-dog interactions have been changing, particularly in developing nations. We conducted household surveys in Costa Rica to characterize dog ownership, the owned dog population, where dogs were confined at night and in the morning, and behaviors regarding selected dog care issues. We also compared these results to similar questionnaires used in Costa Rica over the past 20 years. We found 76% of households in Costa Rica owned at least one dog and on average there were about 1.4 dogs owned per household. These dog ownership rates are higher than previous estimates. The probability of owning a dog was highest on farms and lowest in single family dwellings without a yard, higher among respondents that owned their homes and decreasing with increasing human population density The total number of owned dogs in Costa Rica was estimated to be 2,222,032 (95% confidence intervals: 1,981,497-2,503,751). The sterilization rate for homed dogs in 2020 was approximately 62% (females: 67%, males: 61%) which is higher than the 18% of owned dogs that were sterilized in a 2003 survey. Overall, only 1.2% (95% CI: 0.3-2.5%) of owned dogs slept on the street with a slightly higher proportion on the street at 8 am. The number of owned dogs roaming the streets at night nation-wide was estimated to be 27,208 (95% CI: 7,557-56,619) compared to 43,142 (95% CI: 20,118-73,618) on the street at 8 am. The number of unowned free-roaming dogs in Costa Rica has never been estimated but we can generate some idea of the size of the unowned dog population by determining the proportion of free-roaming dogs on the street wearing collars. There was a negative relationship between human population density and owned dogs being on the street meaning fewer dogs roam the streets in highly populated areas compared to less populated areas. Overall, we identify trends against which future progress can be measured and provide information that are critical in designing effective humane dog management programs in Costa Rica in the future.

Guidance for management of free-roaming community cats: a bioeconomic analysis.

OBJECTIVES: This study used computer simulation modeling to estimate and compare costs of different free-roaming cat (FRC) management options (lethal and non-lethal removal, trap-neuter-return, combinations of these options and no action) and their ability to reduce FRC population abundance in open demographic settings. The findings provide a resource for selecting management approaches that are well matched for specific communities, goals and timelines, and they represent use of best available science to address FRC issues. METHODS: Multiple FRC management approaches were simulated at varying intensities using a stochastic individual-based model in the software package Vortex. Itemized costs were obtained from published literature and expert feedback. Metrics generated to evaluate and compare management scenarios included final population size, total cost and a cost efficiency index, which was the ratio between total cost and population size reduction. RESULTS: Simulations suggested that cost-effective reduction of FRC numbers required sufficient management intensity, regardless of management approach, and greatly improved when cat abandonment was minimized. Removal yielded the fastest initial reduction in cat abundance, but trap-neuter-return was a viable and potentially more cost-effective approach if performed at higher intensities over a sufficient duration. Of five management scenarios that reduced the final population size by approximately 45%, the three scenarios that relied exclusively on removal were considerably more expensive than the two scenarios that relied exclusively or primarily on sterilization. CONCLUSIONS AND RELEVANCE: FRCs present a challenge in many municipalities, and stakeholders representing different perspectives may promote varying and sometimes incompatible population management policies and strategies. Although scientific research is often used to identify FRC impacts, its use to identify viable, cost-effective management solutions has been inadequate. The data provided by simulating different interventions, combined with community-specific goals, priorities and ethics, provide a framework for better-informed FRC policy and management outcomes.

"State of the Mewnion": Practices of Feral Cat Care and Advocacy Organizations in the United States.

Over the last several decades, feral cats have moved from the fringes to the mainstream in animal welfare and sheltering. Although many best practice guidelines have been published by national non-profits and veterinary bodies, little is known about how groups "in the trenches" actually operate. Our study sought to address that gap through an online survey of feral cat care and advocacy organizations based in the United States. Advertised as "The State of the Mewnion," its topics included a range of issues spanning non-profit administration, public health, caretaking and trapping, adoptions of friendly kittens and cats, veterinary medical procedures and policies, data collection and program efficacy metrics, research engagement and interest, and relationships with wildlife advocates and animal control agencies. Respondents from 567 organizations participated, making this the largest and most comprehensive study on this topic to date. Respondents came primarily from grassroots organizations. A majority reported no paid employees (74.6%), served 499 or fewer feral cats per year (75.0%), engaged between 1 and 9 active volunteers (54.9%), and did not operate a brick and mortar facility (63.7%). Some of our findings demonstrate a shared community of practice, including the common use of a minimum weight of 2.0 pounds for spay/neuter eligibility, left side ear tip removals to indicate sterilization, recovery holding times after surgery commonly reported as 1 night for male cats and 1 or 2 nights for females, requiring or recommending to adopters of socialized kittens/cats that they be kept indoor-only, and less than a quarter still engaging in routine testing of cats for FIV and FeLV. Our survey also reveals areas for improvement, such as most organizations lacking a declared goal with a measurable value and a time frame, only sometimes scanning cats for microchips, and about a third not using a standardized injection site for vaccines. This study paints the clearest picture yet available of what constitutes the standard practices of organizations serving feral and community cats in the United States.

Behavior-specific occurrence patterns of Pinyon Jays (Gymnorhinus cyanocephalus) in three Great Basin study areas and significance for pinyon-juniper woodland management.

The Pinyon Jay is a highly social, year-round inhabitant of pinyon-juniper and other coniferous woodlands in the western United States. Range-wide, Pinyon Jays have declined ~ 3-4% per year for at least the last half-century. Occurrence patterns and habitat use of Pinyon Jays have not been well characterized across much of the species' range, and obtaining this information is necessary for better understanding the causes of ongoing declines and determining useful conservation strategies. Additionally, it is important to better understand if and how targeted removal of pinyon-juniper woodland, a common and widespread vegetation management practice, affects Pinyon Jays. The goal of this study was to identify the characteristics of areas used by Pinyon Jays for several critical life history components in the Great Basin, which is home to nearly half of the species' global population, and to thereby facilitate the inclusion of Pinyon Jay conservation measures in the design of vegetation management projects. To accomplish this, we studied Pinyon Jays in three widely separated study areas using radio telemetry and direct observation and measured key attributes of their locations and a separate set of randomly-selected control sites using the U. S. Forest Service's Forest Inventory Analysis protocol. Data visualizations, principle components analysis, and logistic regressions of the resulting data indicated that Pinyon Jays used a distinct subset of available pinyon-juniper woodland habitat, and further suggested that Pinyon Jays used different but overlapping habitats for seed caching, foraging, and nesting. Caching was concentrated in low-elevation, relatively flat areas with low tree cover; foraging occurred at slightly higher elevations with generally moderate but variable tree cover; and nesting was concentrated in slightly higher areas with high tree and vegetation cover. All three of these Pinyon Jay behavior types were highly concentrated within the lower-elevation band of pinyon-juniper woodland close to the woodland-shrubland ecotone. Woodland removal projects in the Great Basin are often concentrated in these same areas, so it is potentially important to incorporate conservation measures informed by Pinyon Jay occurrence patterns into existing woodland management paradigms, protocols, and practices.

Corrigendum: "State of the Mewnion": Practices of Feral Cat Care and Advocacy Organizations in the United States.

[This corrects the article DOI: 10.3389/fvets.2021.791134.].

A Long-Term Lens: Cumulative Impacts of Free-Roaming Cat Management Strategy and Intensity on Preventable Cat Mortalities.

This study used a previously developed stochastic simulation model (1) to estimate the impact of different management actions on free-roaming kitten and cat mortality over a 10-year period. These longer-term cumulative impacts have not been systematically examined to date. We examined seven management scenarios, including: (1) taking no action, (2) low-intensity removal, (3) high-intensity removal, (4) low-intensity episodic culling, (5) high-intensity episodic culling, (6) low-intensity trap-neuter-return (TNR), and (7) high-intensity TNR. For each scenario we tracked within the model the number of kittens born, the number of kittens surviving to adulthood, and the number of adults removed using lethal control over the entire 10-year simulation. We further defined all kitten deaths and lethal removal of adults as "preventable" deaths because they could potentially be reduced by certain management actions. Our simulation results suggested that the cumulative number of preventable deaths over 10 years for an initial population of 50 cats is highest for a "no-action" scenario, estimated at 1,000 deaths. It is lowest for a high-intensity TNR scenario, estimated at 32 deaths, a 31-fold difference. For all management scenarios tested, including removal and culling, the model predicted fewer preventable deaths than for a no-action scenario. For all management scenarios, the model predicted that the higher-intensity option (defined in terms of the proportion of animals sterilized or removed within a given time period) would result in fewer preventable deaths over time than the lower-intensity option. Based on these findings, we conclude that management intensity is important not only to reduce populations more quickly, but also to minimize the number of preventable deaths that occur over time. Accordingly, the lessons for the animal welfare community are both encouraging and cautionary. With sufficient intensity, management by TNR offers significant advantages in terms of combined lifesaving and population size reduction. At lower intensity levels, these advantages are greatly reduced or eliminated. We recommend that those who seek to minimize suffering and maximize lifesaving for free-roaming cats attempt to balance prospective goals (i.e., saving lives tomorrow) with proximate goals (i.e., saving lives today), and recognize that thoughtful choice of management strategies can ensure that both of these complementary goals are achieved.

Better trap-neuter-return for free-roaming cats: Using models and monitoring to improve population management.

OVERVIEW: Trap-neuter-return (TNR) for cat management is transitioning from an enterprise driven mainly by an urge to 'help' into an enterprise that draws useful guidance and precedent from the fields of population biology and wildlife management. This transition is in its infancy, however. At the present time many TNR programs do not produce substantial and persistent reductions in cat populations, and those that do often fail to effectively document this achievement or to publicize their success. CHALLENGES: As a result, TNR has become increasingly controversial, with TNR advocates and wildlife conservationists often staking out fundamentally incompatible positions. This may ultimately prove to be an unproductive debate, since public opinion in developed countries is unlikely to support a total abandonment of TNR in favor of widespread cat management using lethal methods, and since wildlife advocates are unlikely to support TNR as it is typically practiced. ADVANCEMENTS: In contrast, improving the effectiveness of TNR as a population management tool can benefit both cats and wildlife, potentially on a broad scale. Making these advancements requires the diligent promotion, dissemination and adoption of tools like population modeling, population monitoring and adaptive management. By virtue of their training and exposure to the scientific method, veterinarians are uniquely well positioned to translate the more technical aspects of these approaches to TNR practitioners, and to facilitate their wider use. AIM: The purpose of this review is to describe for a veterinary audience how to facilitate more effective sterilization-based management of outdoor cats, using a combination of theoretical knowledge derived from population modeling and empirical knowledge derived from population monitoring. Using both of these information sources synergistically can offer a viable pathway to better management outcomes.

Simulating free-roaming cat population management options in open demographic environments.

Large populations of free-roaming cats (FRCs) generate ongoing concerns for welfare of both individual animals and populations, for human public health, for viability of native wildlife populations, and for local ecological damage. Managing FRC populations is a complex task, without universal agreement on best practices. Previous analyses that use simulation modeling tools to evaluate alternative management methods have focused on relative efficacy of removal (or trap-return, TR), typically involving euthanasia, and sterilization (or trap-neuter-return, TNR) in demographically isolated populations. We used a stochastic demographic simulation approach to evaluate removal, permanent sterilization, and two postulated methods of temporary contraception for FRC population management. Our models include demographic connectivity to neighboring untreated cat populations through natural dispersal in a metapopulation context across urban and rural landscapes, and also feature abandonment of owned animals. Within population type, a given implementation rate of the TR strategy results in the most rapid rate of population decline and (when populations are isolated) the highest probability of population elimination, followed in order of decreasing efficacy by equivalent rates of implementation of TNR and temporary contraception. Even low levels of demographic connectivity significantly reduce the effectiveness of any management intervention, and continued abandonment is similarly problematic. This is the first demographic simulation analysis to consider the use of temporary contraception and account for the realities of FRC dispersal and owned cat abandonment.

Changes in sin nombre virus antibody prevalence in deer mice across seasons: the interaction between habitat, sex, and infection in deer mice.

We examined the impact of season and habitat on Sin Nombre virus (SNV) seroprevalence in deer mice (Peromyscus maniculatus) in Utah's Great Basin Desert from May 2002 through summer 2003. Low mouse captures in 2002 limited analysis for that year. In two seasons during 2003, mouse density and sagebrush cover were positively linked (spring: r = 0.8, P = 0.01; summer: r = 0.8, P = 0.04). In the spring, seroprevalence was negatively correlated with density (r = -0.9, P< 0.01); male and female antibody prevalence did not differ; and scarring was unrelated to antibody status. In the summer, density and antibody prevalence were unrelated; male seroprevalence was higher (chi(2) = 3.6, P = 0.05); and seropositive mice had more scars (t = 2.5, P = 0.02). We speculate nesting behavior could maintain SNV over the winter, whereas summer territoriality could be responsible for transmission.

Infection dynamics of Sin Nombre virus after a widespread decline in host populations.

Many researchers have speculated that infection dynamics of Sin Nombre virus are driven by density patterns of its major host, Peromyscus maniculatus. Few, if any, studies have examined this question systematically at a realistically large spatial scale, however. We collected data from 159 independent field sites within a 1 million-hectare study area in Nevada and California, from 1995-1998. In 1997, there was a widespread and substantial reduction in host density. This reduction in host density did not reduce seroprevalence of antibody to Sin Nombre virus within host populations. During this period, however, there was a significant reduction in the likelihood that antibody-positive mice had detectable virus in their blood, as determined by reverse-transcriptase polymerase chain reaction. Our findings suggest 2 possible causal mechanisms for this reduction: an apparent change in the age structure of host populations and landscape-scale patterns of host density. This study indicates that a relationship does exist between host density and infection dynamics and that this relationship concurrently operates at different spatial scales. It also highlights the limitations of antibody seroprevalence as a metric of infections, especially during transient host-density fluctuations.