The human toll of the war in Ukraine is well documented. But Russia’s invasion is also having a surprising effect on the country’s domestic animals. In a study published in December in the journal Evolutionary Applications, a team of researchers found that the war in Ukraine has, in a short period of time, transformed dogs that were previously domesticated into those found in more wild environments.
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The scientists collected a variety of data on 763 dogs from nine regions of Ukraine. The team worked with animal shelters, while veterinarians and volunteers collected data on stray dogs in potentially safe areas and sometimes in areas designated as dangerous territories. But collecting data on the front lines was more difficult. The work was led by Ihor Dykyi, a zoologist at the Ivan Franko National University of Lviv who served on the front lines, The New York Times reports.
“Many stray dogs lived with us in the village of Zarichne,” recalled Dyky. “They were frightened by the fighting, some suffered from concussion. One small dog had a broken paw that had not healed properly, causing him to limp constantly. Another was blind in one eye, having lost it in an explosion.”
Igor Dyky and his fellow dogs “fed them all, gave them shelter, and provided medical care when possible.” Although the study focused on pet dogs, many of them were no longer in the care of their owners and were living as strays.
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“Since the beginning of the war, we have observed a very sad situation with pets in Ukraine,” said the lead author of the article and a zoologist at Lviv University, Maria Martsiv . “Some people took their pets with them, but some were simply left at train stations or in occupied territories.”
Most of the team’s findings suggest that frontline dogs have, in a remarkably short period of time, become more like wild animals—wolves, coyotes, and dingoes. Examples of the transformation abound in the data: Frontline dogs rarely had short snouts like French bulldogs or long snouts like dachshunds. Many of them also had reduced body mass. Even their ears took on a different shape, with pointed ears more common than droopy ones.
“On the front lines, dogs with signs of a “wild” phenotype really survive more often: straight ears, straight tail, less white,” Martsiv wrote.
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Other characteristics more commonly associated with wild dog species have been found in conflict zones in Ukraine: fewer old, sick, and injured dogs, and dogs more often living in groups.
But the scientists did not want their findings to be interpreted as accelerated evolution caused by the war.
What is actually happening is that the conditions of war favor animals that have certain characteristics. For example, a dog with a lower body mass is less likely to be blown up by a mine, has more opportunities to hide in confined spaces, and is a smaller target for shrapnel. Despite evidence of apparently wild personality traits and physical characteristics, most dogs remained dependent on humans for food, supplementing their diet with plants and occasionally hunting. Sometimes dogs survived by eating the bodies of fallen soldiers. Some were taken by the Ukrainian military. But scientists have observed dogs on the front lines that were no longer dependent on humans for their survival.
“The evidence that dogs are so negatively affected by the horrors of war should serve as a wake-up call for other species that are much less mobile and have more restricted diet and habitat requirements,” said wildlife ecologist Ewan Ritchie of Deakin University in Australia , who was not involved in the project.
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Previously, “FACTS” wrote that a resident of Sumy region overcame a difficult journey to take his dogs out of a destroyed village.