Any abundant biological species have significant effects on the planet by consuming natural resources. Being rather popular as pets, dogs and cats are often explored with attention to their psychological impacts on humans, but their negative environmental influences require consideration as well. The essay aims to summarize these animals’ key environmental impacts with an emphasis on food consumption, infectious disease, species’ survival, and global warming.
As domesticated animals, cats and dogs fit into the environment in peculiar ways. Animals living with pet owners in urban areas constitute a new category of consumers that require alimentary products in diverse price categories, animal toys, grooming products, and other pet products (Ferguson, 2020). With no need to hunt for smaller animals to survive, domestic dogs and cats that can go outside still need their predatory impulses to be satisfied (Ferguson, 2020). One option is that it results in the purposeless killings of small birds and rodents, and the abandoned prey can attract dangerous disease-transmitting animals, such as city-dwelling rats. The situation might be different for stray cats and dogs as they are urged to eat from garbage bins and protect their territory, which involves the spread of infection and aggression towards animals and humans. Even domestic and healthy dogs’ feces contain viruses and parasites that can enter water supply systems, thus causing harm to humans and water life (Ferguson, 2020). Therefore, dogs’ and cats’ presence cannot be unnoticed when it comes to the global environment.
Dogs’ and cats’ influence on the ecosystem as a whole is rather negative. Firstly, free-ranging domestic pets’ presence is widely acknowledged as a mechanism of “human disturbance to native animal populations” (Morin et al., 2018, p. 2). Domestic cats actively engage in hunting and can even contribute to rare species’ extinction (Ferguson, 2020). If quantified, the hunting-related damage from cats is seven times larger than from dogs (Morin et al., 2018). Nevertheless, dogs are less tied to human habitats, which could make their ecological impacts more pervasive yet less noticeable (Morin et al., 2018). The role of cats in disseminating protozoan parasites, causing toxoplasmosis in humans, and even contaminating drinking water with the oocysts of Toxoplasma gondii is highlighted in modern studies (Morin et al., 2018). Thus, infection transmission presents another challenging effect for the ecosystem.
In determining cats’ and dogs’ overall influences on the ecological system, especially in comparison with other domesticated species, the food consumption patterns and their effects are crucial. As per Okin’s (2017) recent energy usage study, cats and dogs in the U.S. are responsible for up to 30% of the environmental and ecological effects of meat product consumption. Meat production is more energy-intensive and promotes erosion to a greater extent compared to plant food (Okin, 2017). Considering this, cats and dogs definitely outperform many domesticated species with plant diets, such as sheep, horses, or herbivorous rodents, in their negative impacts on the ecosystem. Every year, cats’ and dogs’ consumption of meat and animal products contributes to the release of at least 64,000,000 tons of N 2 O and CH 4 , both of which have prominent global warming potentials (Okin, 2017). Therefore, these animals’ impacts on air quality and greenhouse gas emissions are also substantial.
Finally, both cats and dogs exert an enormous influence on the environment and the ecosystem. As carnivorous species, they actively consume products of animal origin that require substantial natural resources to be manufactured and contribute to greenhouse gas emissions. These domesticated animals’ hunting behaviors might affect native species’ survival, and parasites in their feces can cause human disease and water contamination, making stray dogs and cats a source of danger.