He says there is usually so much scat littered throughout the off-leash park, that there may eventually be talk of shutting it down, because the problem is getting worse each year, not better. However, it would affect thousands of people and their daily routine.

“If we look to the United States, there is precedent that dog runs have been closed to the public because of the health hazard that has been created by left-behind scat. And so, events like this are one of our strategies to raise awareness that problem is your own, and hey – the last thing we want to see is one of your parks getting shut down because of health hazards. It only takes a moment to clean up after your dog.”

That said, it would be a decision potentially made by the City of Lethbridge.

He points out that there are multiple locations on the trail where owners can get a baggie or two for their dogs.

Goodman says there are about 8,000 licensed dogs in the city. If they have (at the low end) one bowel movement per day, that equates to about three million scat events over the course of a year, based on licensed dogs alone.

“If we do some rough estimation that you know, half of those are dealt with timely by their owners, part of that is going to be happening in people’s yards, it’s still fair to say there are still hundreds of thousands of pieces of scat left behind every year in these dog runs.”

And that makes it a bio-contaminant that can not only affect the park eco-systems, but it also gets into our drinking water. That applies especially to the Scenic Drive Dog Run, because it’s located just above the intake for the City of Lethbridge’s water treatment plant.

“It can detrimentally affect water quality that everybody downstream depends on for drinking, bathing, farming, you name it. We, as residents of Lethbridge have a duty of care to look out for water quality for everybody that depends on it.

“We are ourselves downstream of many communities, and if they were creating a problem like this, we would certainly look to them and say it’s time to act and smarten up.”

Goodman also wants to appeal to those owners who love their dogs and want to prevent them from potentially becoming ill.

“Scat can also certainly cause a health hazard to park users… but also the dogs that are out running around. Sometimes those pieces of scat can be irresistible,” he explains. “So, if for example, a dog was in the area and had a nasty parasite, there’s a good chance that that could get spread around to many other dogs and potentially on to humans.”

And Goodman says cleaning up after your dog is also just part of being a good neighbor and responsible owner.

During the last clean-up event in October 2017, with 11 volunteers in 45 minutes about 152 pounds of poo were collected, and 250 flags were placed in the ground.

We have contacted the Helen Schuler Nature Centre to find out how much poop was collected Wednesday night, and other details. When LNN has them, we’ll update the story.