Dunedin locals fed up with the amount of dog poo on a popular walkway rallied together on Sunday to clean-up the mess and send a message to pooch owners to take responsibility for their doggie doo.
Antonia Wood, who organised the event, said volunteers scooped up more than 30kg of poo across the 5km walkway at West Harbour.
"The reason why I originally did this is because we were having an issue on the West Harbour walkway, which we use a lot, with the kids stepping in dog poo and seeing a lot of poo on the side of the walkway and in the picnic areas on the side," Wood told Newshub.
"I was getting tired of cleaning up dog poo off shoes and carpet, and bikes and buggies. So that's what made me first highlight the issue."
Wood says she initially started spraypainting the doggie doo to draw attention to it before deciding to form a Facebook group and organising a clean-up.
"What we've discovered is, it's an area-wide, and I think nationwide, problem. It just happens that I've highlighted this problem area but from all of the feedback it looks like there's similar issues in a lot of places.
"When you actually stop and look at how much there is it's really surprising and horrifying."
Wood said there had been a lot of support from the community - from both dog owners and non dog owners - as well as from the Dunedin City Council, which had already put up new signage reminding owners to "scoop the poop".
"Hopefully it will get dog owners to take more responsibility for taking all of their poo home instead of just leaving it on the side of the path."
