When he's not looking for illegal hunters in Indiana's forests or patrolling nearby Lake Monroe, Conservation Officer Marlin Dodge is chasing pets. State forests are remote areas, Dodge said, and that makes the Morgan-Monroe State Forest a prime target for people who want to dump their unwanted cat or dog.

"(People) think that if they take an animal out into the wilderness and turn it loose, it has a chance to survive," Dodge said in a recent interview. "Well, then that causes problems." The animal may suffer starvation or abuse and pose a health hazard for humans and a threat to the native forest wildlife.

Most dogs do not do well on their own, Dodge explained. They're not able to catch enough food and they are likely to catch rabies, distemper or the mange. As a result, a lot of stray dogs starve to death, he said. Those that do survive, Dodge warned, become aggressive and often travel in packs.

"They can be quite violent when they're out in these areas," he said. Dodge himself has been cornered by wild dogs in the forest and has been bitten, a few times severely. These animals will attack people, he emphasized, they can and will bite. A few years ago, he had to deal with a black lab that "was biting people on bicycles and joggers," Dodge said.

He also had an encounter with an extremely wild, white German shepherd. "This dog was fast enough and big enough that it would actually kill deer," Dodge said, which is unusual for a dog. Yet Dodge, had "seen it kill at least two."

Not only was the dog aggressive and dangerous because it didn't fear humans, he said, but when it had puppies, they were born as wild dogs. "Now, how many of them survived, there's no way of knowing," Dodge said, but the shepherd was reported as chasing people and Dodge was called in.

After several years of tracking the great white dog, Dodge, a self-proclaimed Ahab, found himself on one ridge and the dog on the other. The German shepherd was too aggressive to be successfully captured so unfortunately, Dodge said, he had to destroy that one. "I don't like to do that, but sometimes it's necessary."

Whenever possible, Dodge said, he tries to trap the stray animals for the Animal Control center to pick up. One winter, he gave the foresters at the Morgan-Monroe forest a trap and they caught 27 cats right next to the forest office.

So, how big of a problem are feral pets for foresters? "Well, some weeks you'll get quite a few and other times you might not have any," long-time forester Dave Vadas said. But it's difficult to know how severe a problem it is, because cats are more adaptable to the forest than dogs. Whereas a dog will usually end up at a campground when it gets hungry, Vadas said, a cat (if it hasn't been declawed) has a natural instinct to hunt and can capture its meal.

"You'll see (feral cats) at all times of the year," Vadas said, "running around looking for something to eat and they'll seem to be fairly well fed. They're very secretive. You just see them and they're gone."

A few years ago, the Indiana Division of Fish and Wildlife did a census in the Morgan-Monroe State Forest to determine the population and the status of the native Indiana Bobcat. "The idea is that the bobcat would be attracted to (a bobcat-scented post) and we would be able to confirm a sighting based on the tracks in the clear area around the post," Vadas said. "But, it was really descriptive of how many animals are out there that are not what we'd call native to the forest."

Although the census didn't find any bobcats, Vadas said the results did show a lot of cats and dogs at the posts. "It was surprising in some areas. Cats and dogs were even way back in the forest," he said.

It's common to think stray pets would want to be near where people live, Vadas said, but "if a cat has a litter and raises its kittens without any contact with humans, then it doesn't take very long for them to be wild. If you try and capture them they can really be nasty to deal with."

Feral animals aren't just a hassle for the foresters. They are also detrimental to the health of a forest environment. Cats in particular, including house pets that are allowed outside, are incredibly destructive to the native wildlife. A study done at the University of Wisconsin in the early 1990s estimated that about 2 million cats roam the state's rural areas and that these cats killed 31.4 million small mammals and 7.8 million birds a year.

"They're sneaky," Vadas said. "(Feral cats) are able to creep up next to small mammals, and birds...They are very efficient at catching them, grabbing them and eating them." Unlike dogs, cats will hunt just for fun. If it moves, Vadas said, a cat wants to play with it.

This is exactly why organizations like the Audubon Society, the American Bird Conservancy and the American Humane Association all have programs encouraging owners to keep their cats inside. The three organizations have teamed up on a campaign called "Cats Indoors! The Campaign for Safer Birds and Cats. Its mission is to educate owners about the danger in letting pet cats outside and about the damage cats do to wildlife.

The average life expectancy of an outdoor cat, the campaign's brochure reads, is "just two to five years, while an indoor cat may survive for 17 or more."

Part of the problem, said Jo Liska, education director for Bloomington Animal Care and Control, is that owners who drop off unwanted pets in the forest don't understand the concept of domestication. Pets are clearly dependent on their owners, Liska said, and the owners are obligated to care for them. Dogs in particular, she said, are "not wolves and not foxes. They are domesticated."

"Even if we can't house them (at the animal shelter)," Liska said, "at least they'll meet a humane death, rather than a horrific one." Unwanted pets will have a chance to find a home at the Bloomington shelter - that's unlikely to happen in the forest.

"Think before you adopt," Liska urged. "Think about the long-term consequences," she said for anyone who is considering adopting a pet. "This is not going out and buying a toaster oven."

Erika Biga is a master's student at the IU School of Journalism.