Important Information for Dog-Owners and Dog-Walkers
It is that time of year when we ask dog-owners and dog-walkers to help us protect our wildlife by keeping their charges under control and, where requested, on lead.
Bird/Wildfowl Breeding Season
As breeding season for ground-nesting birds fast approaches, Wimbledon and Putney Commons are asking visitors to the Commons to help protect these species, at a time when they are particularly vulnerable, by practising responsible dog walking.
The Commons are home to abundant wildlife who live and thrive in this natural environment and our ground-nesting birds and wildfowl on the ponds are starting to nest, they are very vulnerable to disturbance. Ground nests are usually well camouflaged in the long grass and may be little more than a shallow scrape, making it easy to forget they are present in the landscape. The stress of a dog or a person running across the landscape can seriously disrupt breeding for these birds. Reducing disturbance as much as possible gives them the best chance of breeding success.
Dogs on Lead Zones - 1st March to 31st July
Once again we are asking dog walkers to keep their dogs on leads in the bird-nesting area of The Plain - the area bordered in red below. The area has been clearly marked with posts and notices and we would kindly ask dog owners and walkers to help us ensure that we give the best chance we can to our nationally declining ground-nesting bird population - particularly Skylarks and Meadow Pipit. As the grass grows the paths through the area will be mown and we would also ask you to keep to these paths.
Dogs out of Ponds - 1st March to 31st August
From the 1st March, we ask dog-owners and dog-walkers to keep dogs on lead and out of the ponds to protect the wildfowl that breed around the edge of ponds.
All our ponds are vitally important to our breeding wildfowl and this year we are asking you to keep your dogs out of the water so we can minimise disturbance to any birds nesting around the perimeter.
If you wish to allow your dog to have a drink or a paddle at the water's edge to cool off please put them on a lead.
Please be aware that we have swans at Queensmere, Kingsmere and Rushmere and keeping your dogs out of the water is vital for their safety too as the adult swans can get very aggressive during the breeding/nesting season.
A visitor took some photographs of the male swan attacking a dog in the water, apparently going from sleeping to a full-on attack on the dog who was 100 yards away (and not even bothering the swans) in a matter of seconds.
