Domestic Dogs Blamed for ‘Extensive and Multifarious’ Impact on Environment, Climate Change

From wildlife disruption to waterway pollution, a new study warns man’s best friend leaves a destructive footprint on ecosystems across the planet.

Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images
A pet dog in a New York dog park. Jamie McCarthy/Getty Images

A new paper published by academics in Australia suggests that, in addition to being man’s best friend for millennia, dogs are contributing to climate change and wreaking havoc on the ecology around us. The study says dogs are degrading the soil, threatening wildlife, decimating aquatic ecosystems, and contributing as much greenhouse gases as a land area twice the size of the United Kingdom.

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