Dogs Bring New Wildflower Growth to Declining English Preserve

Thought Question: How might you use your own skills or interests to contribute to environmental conservation?

We already know that dogs are humans’ best friends. But they might also be good for flowers and other living things.

An urban park restoration project in southern England aims to prove that. It's using unleashed dogs with backpacks carrying seeds to scatter new wildflowers and grasses in a “degraded woodland.” That's what a wildlife expert says.

“Now we have a positive way for dogs and their owners to be the stars and contribute to nature,” the expert, Dylan Walker, told The Washington Post. Walker works with the Railway Land Wildlife Trust in Lewes. The town is six miles from the English coast. It is home to the Railway Land preserve. It's a 27-acre wildlife park. 

Dogs once couldn't go off-leash there. Now they can run free with backpacks filled with holes and various seeds. The holey backpacks scatter the seeds all around. Supporters of the park said it had long been damaged by people. As more visitors trampled through the preserve, new flowers were failing to rise from the ground.

The concept is based in part on ancient environmental history. Before they went extinct in Britain, roaming wolves were known to spread grass and flower seeds picked up on their fur. The seeds would fall off and sprout in new soil many miles away. Bison and wild horses have done the same in the Americas. But bringing such big animals to a small and delicate area would be impractical.

Walker said the idea came from a 2019 Chilean project started by two women. The women used three dogs to plant seeds in parts of the country that had been destroyed by wildfires. While it’s early in the project, Walker told The Guardian, “We’ve already started to see seed germination in some areas."

Photo of dog with backpack courtesy J Doll on Wikimedia Commons.