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Phoenix666 [soylentnews.org] writes:

Our latest research [sciencedirect.com] reveals that the ecological "pawprint" of domestic dogs is much greater than previously realised [phys.org].

Using the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species [iucnredlist.org], we counted how many species are negatively affected by dogs, assessed the prevalence of different types of impacts, and identified regions with the greatest number of affected species.

Dogs are third-most-damaging mammal

We found that dogs are implicated in the extinction of at least 11 species, including the Hawaiian Rail [iucnredlist.org] and the Tonga Ground Skink [iucnredlist.org]. Dogs are also a known or potential threat to 188 threatened species [phys.org] worldwide: 96 mammal, 78 bird, 22 reptile and three amphibian species. This includes 30 critically endangered species [phys.org], two of which are classed as "possibly extinct".

These numbers place dogs in the number three spot after cats and rodents as the world's most damaging invasive mammalian predators [pnas.org].

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