How to Minimize Your Pet's Affect on a Campsite

Video Transcript

" Hi, this is Bruce Lessels from Zoar Outdoor on behalf of expertvillage.com, talking about low impact camping methods. So its fun to go camping with your family and the temptation may be there to bring your dog or your other pet along with you but be aware that your pet can have major impacts on the environment as well. If there are animals around, dogs often chase deer, they sometimes chase bears, they sometimes chase other animals that they might find and that can be a real problem for those animals or as well as for your dog. Certainly if you’re in big bear country out west or somewhere where there are brown bears or grizzly bears, your dog may be in more danger than the bear but still your dog is still a nuisance to those bears. Certainly out here in the east where we have mostly black bears that are fairly harmless, they’re probably not going to hurt your dog but your dog again may put them off of their normal patterns and they impact their survival in their normal patterns of living. The other thing of course is that the other campers in the area may not appreciate your dog barking in the middle of the night, they may not appreciate you having a dog at all there. So look at the regulations for camping in your area, if you’re going to bring a dog make sure that that’s okay and if you do bring a dog keep it on a leash and make sure you clean after its waste as well cause that can have an impact as well."