masterThesis
Estimación de la población de perros y gatos vagabundos dentro del cantón Riobamba
Fecha
2022-02-23Autor
Trujillo Santillán, Natalia Stefanía
Institución
Resumen
Free-roaming cats and dogs have a high impact on the environmental and are
considered a public health problem because they are carriers of often zoonotic
diseases. The present study was carried out in the city of Riobamba, Ecuador, which
has 258,597 inhabitants and 97,970 hectares of surface. The sample of this study
was obtained from the census areas of the Canton provided by INEC (National
Institute of Statistics and Censuses), 10 randomly chosen areas 7 urban zone and
2 rural parishes. The tours were carried out from 04:00 to 06:00 (local time) with two
members of the team, one for cats and one for dogs, collecting the data (number of
sightings, distance to the animal, degrees to the animal, degrees to the transect).
The data was tabulated in Excel® and the Distance® program was used to choose
the model and estimate the population dogs and cats. The best model for dogs were
Hazard rate – Simple polynomial with 10% truncated and for cats Negative
Exponential – Simple polynomial with 10% truncated, these were adjusted based on
the AIC (Akaike Information Criterion). The population density per hectare for dogs
was 1.16 dogs/ha and for cats 0.44 cats/ha. The total population estimate 113,577
dogs and 43,403 cats. Univariate and multivariate analyzes were made in RStudio®
program to identify factors of overpopulation of dogs and cats, the variables studied
were based on the 2010 Population and Housing Census. With Poisson regression,
an association was found between white ethnicity and the number of dogs per
kilometer. In the case of cats, no associations were found with the variables studied.
With these results, the baseline on the demography of stray dogs and cats was
obtained to take strategies regarding urban fauna and public policy of the Riobamba
City.