Stray dogs pose a threat in Bowman, where residents report attacks on livestock and express safety concerns.
BOWMAN, S.C. — Stray dogs are becoming a growing concern in the Orangeburg County town of Bowman, where residents say packs of roaming animals have been attacking livestock and threatening the safety of the community.
John Berg, a Bowman resident, says he lost 23 chickens in recent weeks to a group of dogs that invaded his property.
“It was just devastated to come out here and see all these dead chickens laying everywhere. And then have to clean them up,” Berg said.
The quiet town has been rattled by the presence of the aggressive strays, which have been reported roaming neighborhoods and killing chickens, many of which residents consider pets as well as livestock.
“About 8 o’clock, we all locked the barn up and locked the chickens in the barn. Well, when I got out here, they were all scattered from one end to the other dead,” Berg said.
Now left with only two chickens, Berg is reinforcing his coop to prevent further losses.
“We’d never had them before, and I was never a big bird fan, but you know they, they got to be where they were real pets,” he said.
Bowman Mayor Patsy Rhett says the town is aware of the problem and is urging residents to stay cautious while local authorities work on solutions.
“We fear, you know, the safety of our residents is our first and main concern. So we’re asking them to please, you know, if, if they see these dogs, just make sure that, you know, take precautions, take precautions around these dogs, call law enforcement and see what they can do and see if we can get help in getting rid of this problem,” Rhett said.
Orangeburg County officials say animal control services is overwhelmed, with hundreds of stray dogs roaming throughout the area. Still, they are urging residents to report sightings and avoid engaging with the animals.
“The first thing you wanna do is, is, is make sure that your animals as secure as you can make them,” said Mernard Clarkson, Orangeburg County’s code enforcement director. “Of course, being livestock there’s, you know, you’re limited on what you can do, but to the extent that you can, that they’re housed, make sure that they’re secure to the best of your abilities. And secondly, as soon as you observe this activity, notify us immediately because those are type of calls where we do respond immediately when there’s an attack of an animal or person or any aggression shown in an animal. We’ll come out, assess the situation and try to get some traps set up and get those dogs captured before they can cause additional harm to anyone else.”
Clarkson said his department is doing what it can, but resources are stretched thin.
“Unfortunately, hundreds of strays at this time throughout the county that we’re picking up as we can get them in here at the shelter and house them to determine whether they could be adoptable or sent to rescues,” Clarkson said. “But the most important thing to us here at Animal Control, let us know that you observe an animal in in your area that you don’t recognize, and if you do observe it, ask around. It may be somebody’s pet or somebody’s animal that’s gotten out and wandered into your yard, and we can go out and address that with that homeowner if it could be identified and saving that time and resource to bring it into the shelter.”
Orangeburg County Animal Control urges residents to report any stray dogs they see in their area.
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