One Health in the Argan Forest

Families living in the argan forest now face a new challenge of attacks by uncontrolled packs of feral dogs which roam free in the forest and which represent a real threat to people and their livestock. They can transmit zoonotic diseases such as deadly rabies by biting people and especially children, and have also started to prey on people’s precious livestock or on endangered gazelles living in the region. Addressing the challenge of zoonotic diseases is one of the components of our One Health project in the argan forest, which objective is to improve the health of local people, the health of their animals and the health of their unique and threatened argan forest.

 We started to vaccinate domestic dogs against rabies and conduct awareness campaigns on rabies in schools and women’s associations in local villages last year but now need to develop a long-term method for controlling this new and potentially fatal risk. However, the presence of feral dogs packs is a new phenomenon in this threatened ecosystem and no long-term solutions will be effective until this challenge is better understood.

We have therefore initiated a multi-disciplinary project of the conflict with feral dogs involving vets, doctors and ecologists to understand better how this new dog population functions and what triggers these dogs to now attack people and their livestock. The team will work in villages with key people to monitor feral dogs movements, population dynamics and behavior and will also conduct awareness campaigns with local families on methods to protect themselves and their animals against feral dogs.

The control of vital health challenges such as rabies and other zoonotic diseases can only succeed if we develop strategies based on scientific evidence of the root cause of the problems, and not on what we think might be happening. We have to integrate the understanding of feral dog populations, their dynamics and ecology, which in turn is closely linked to domestic waste management and interactions between all dog populations. People and their animals are part of a wider ecosystem in which all elements are inter-connected. It is fascinating to think that some domestic dogs may have returned to a completely wild and free-roaming stage but these once so-called “man’s best friend” now represent a real risk to people’s lives and health and it is our responsibility to control them.