Why walking the dog could be scaring off local birds

Taking your dog for a walk could be having an impact on local birdlife, a study suggests.

An Australian team found dog-walking was prompting birds to take flight, causing numbers to plummet by 41%.



The researchers, writing in the Royal Society journal Biology Letters, said the birds were fleeing because they viewed the dogs as potential predators.

Charity Birdlife International said the longer-term effects of the dogs' presence now needed to be looked at.