Dog and Cat Interactions in a Remote Aboriginal Community

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

This manuscript has some really informative data about both dogs and cats on this island.  I would strongly suggest that the analyses for both species be done completely in parallel given the paucity of data on dogs and the interesting differences between the species that are documented.  For example, the paragraphs starting on lines 222 and 22 should be similar for each species.

Some additional clarity on some of the methods is needed.  As well, I have specific comments below.

Line 22: please be specific about the number of cats…this is very few.  And include the number of dogs as well.

Paragraph starting line 51: this topic sentence is about zoonoses.  But heartworm isn’t typically zoonotic and line 57 then says that only some of the diseases listed are.  Please edit this paragraph for clarity.

Line 63: how have these actions limited the impact of dogs on wildlife? 

Line 65: and these are only potential impacts with very limited evidence.

Paragraph starting line 67:  This is very slanted toward cats with only brief mention of the influence of fires and no mention of people living in the area or dogs.  Please include a more complete overview of the many ways the humans, dogs, cats and other species could have negative impacts on original species.  It doesn’t have to be lengthy or comprehensive but it should be balanced.

Line 92: So all of the data here is from this one island.  Please adjust the language in the manuscript to make that clear.

Section 2.2: who did the first survey?  And where the same methods used for the others?  Please add a bit more detail to this section so that someone could duplicate the work if they wished.

Figure 1: please label the transects.

Section 2.4: please clearly indicate the variables being compared for each analysis and the assumptions tested to determine if the statistical analysis was valid.  Please provide a bit more detail on what the Rayleigh test tells us, this isn’t that common and this is a journal with a wide range of readers. Particularly for length, in line 67, the description is a little too concise to make it possible to really understand what this information is telling the reader.

Lines 180-191: I would like to see the main data in these paragraphs in a table that allows for each comparison between the species.  I would also like the desexing information to be provided by sex. Line 187: how are there 327 households with no cats when there are a total of 334 households and only 225 were home?  Please double check this section.

Lines 203-5 (and for similar dog data):  It is difficult to understand how the data presented are and are not significant.  Please very briefly indicate that not significant means that the pattern of times the cats were roaming was not significantly different across the day.  It is confusing that the text indicates a tendency to roam at a particular time with the test being non-significant.  Please also note in the discussion the limitations of the Rayleigh test with sample size and any other considerations that could have influenced the results.

Lines 215-19: I would like to see this information included in the dog and cat comparison table I suggested above.  That would make it easy to see differences.  I’m also not sure what variables were in which regression models (that should be clear in the methods and again here).  So the R2 in figure 4 for the blue data (which I assume is one regression) isn’t significant?  Please provide the actual p-values in the text.

Section 3.3.3: please round p-values to 2 significant digits (as in Sparkes et al.).  Were all data normally distributed and therefore suitable to summarize as means?  Please indicate in the methods that this was checked and confirmed.  I would also like to see the distances traveled data in the dog and cats comparison table suggested above.

Again for the discussion, please balance the dog and cat results and implications as much as possible. Reference 25: there are some additional references that support this and some that don’t.  Please explore this a bit more thoroughly.  And since the goal was to support animal knowledge transfer and policy change, some recommendations that are applicable to this population would be helpful.

Table A1: please order the transects by distance to nearest household for ease of understanding.

Table A2: were all of these intact animals?  Please clarify.

Author Response

Please see attached documented.

Author Response File: Author Response.docx

Reviewer 2 Report

This manuscript reports on a pilot study of dog and cat populations and space use in an Aboriginal community. As such, it reports on the results of a number of methods which were applied in order to establish baseline results, especially for the relatively new, and concerning, island cat population.

I think that this work was well done, and deserving of publication. The comprehensive use of methods, thus producing some interesting comparisons across methods, is almost as important as the baseline data produced. As such, I would strongly recommend that the authors add a bit of discussion to the Discussion re: future directions. So will you recommend continuing all the methods, do you feel one method is "better" (more effective, more cost-efficient?) than another? More discussion of pros and cons of the different methods, given that you have the unusual perspective of having applied so many methods at one time...

I have one comment in the attached copy...

Good job!

Comments for author File: Comments.pdf

Author Response

Reviewer 1

I think that this work was well done, and deserving of publication. The comprehensive use of methods, thus producing some interesting comparisons across methods, is almost as important as the baseline data produced. As such, I would strongly recommend that the authors add a bit of discussion to the Discussion re: future directions. So will you recommend continuing all the methods, do you feel one method is "better" (more effective, more cost-efficient?) than another? More discussion of pros and cons of the different methods, given that you have the unusual perspective of having applied so many methods at one time...paragraph added to the beginning of the discussion

Why didn’t you estimate the cat population as you did with the dogs?

The houses that owned cats were targeted during the census and all known cats were counted. This has been explained in line 188-190.

Reviewer 3 Report

This is an interesting study of the movements of cats and dogs in a remote aboriginal community. The science is generally fine, as is the writing. 

The authors have not made much attempt to incorporate the body of work into others studies of free range commensal dogs and cats. I think this would greatly increase the audience if they did so.

My other major criticisms are to do with the reporting of the GPS data and the statistical analyses. There is no data on the accuracy of the GPS collars, even though there is a lot of literature on this. Were readings with low number of satellites or high HDOP removed? 

The statistical analyses need to report the F values and degrees of freedom, not just the p values. 

There was no data on diet, but it would be interesting to relate this to other studies of dogs in Aboriginal communities.

Author Response

Reviewer 3

This is an interesting study of the movements of cats and dogs in a remote aboriginal community. The science is generally fine, as is the writing.

The authors have not made much attempt to incorporate the body of work into others studies of free range commensal dogs and cats. I think this would greatly increase the audience if they did so.

Incorporated this in to the discussion

My other major criticisms are to do with the reporting of the GPS data and the statistical analyses. There is no data on the accuracy of the GPS collars, even though there is a lot of literature on this. Were readings with low number of satellites or high HDOP removed? Added in section 2.3.3

The statistical analyses need to report the F values and degrees of freedom, not just the p values. Added to all analyses

There was no data on diet, but it would be interesting to relate this to other studies of dogs in Aboriginal communities. This was outside of the scope of the current study, however information on dog and cat diets have been collected for a separate study that has not been published yet.

Round 2

Reviewer 1 Report

The authors have substantially improve the clarity of the manuscript and the completeness of the methods and results. Thank you for really digging in and making the changes. 

I have a few remaining requests.

Line 70: “Dogs are also known…” please start a new paragraph here.  Line 73: the ; isn’t needed.

Table 1: Please add row percentages for ease of comparison here.

My apologies for not being clear about the two comments below:

Section 3.3.2: I would like to see the text that includes the number of dogs and cats and the Rayleigh data for dogs and cats in Table 1 instead of embedded in a paragraph. It is very hard to understand and compare when it is in the paragraph.

Section 3.3.3: Similarly I would like to see the ARs and distances traveled data that is in this section’s text moved to Table 1.

Conclusion: this should be the conclusion of this study, not a statement of potential reasons for doing the study.  What were the high level results that are important from this research?  The authors could include some key recommendations as well here.  Even though dog numbers are stable, they do roam quite a ways.  Are there recommendations for that as well? 

Author Response

Please see attached document

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf