Effectiveness of reversible contraception in dog population management
Baquero, Oswaldo SantosBrandão, Ana Pérola DrullaAmaku, MarcosFerreira, Fernando
Background: Dog fertility depends on human-influenced factors such as sterilization. Uncontrolled fertility can result in unwanted births and overpopulation, which causes problems of public health and animal welfare. Surgical sterilization has been the traditional means of reproduction control but its cost and time can be prohibitive for mass sterilization programs. Non-surgical sterilization alternatives exist, but most of them are reversible and their effectiveness as a population management tool is unknown. To better understand the consequences of reversible contraception, the fertility dynamics was modeled in a hypothetical dog population in a steady-state condition.Materials, Methods & Results: The effect of reversible contraception was simulated using a coupled system of ordinary differential equations. A hypothetical steady-state population of 1000 animals was considered. It was formed by two compartments, one of fertile dogs and the other of infertile dogs. Natality compensated for a fraction of mortality, and the immigration rate compensated for the remaining fraction. The group of immigrant dogs was composed of fertile and infertile dogs. The dog flow between compartments was given by both the contraception and fertility recovery rate. It was assumed that fertility reversibility in animals of the immigrant group was equal to that of animals already present in the [...](AU)
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