Dogs have been trained to assist us in so many different
ways; from retrieving game for hunters to acting as eyes for the blind, they
work for our love and affection. They are also companions for many of us,
providing entertainment and comfort in our households. We often think about the
ways that dogs help humans, but their assistance in the conservation of other
species is not as well known. There are many organizations that employ teams of
dogs in conservation efforts to work alongside scientists, park rangers, and
customs officials.
Fido has been man’s chosen hunting partner for centuries due
to their loyalty and keen ability to track scents. This super sense of smell
doesn’t have to end in a dead animal; it can also be applied to the
preservation of other species. Many scientists have found that dogs are more
efficient and effective than other methods in ecological research. Why are dogs
so effective? The main reason they surpass field biologists and ecologists in
population surveys is their superior sense of smell. They can detect scent 100
million times better than humans and can find multiple odors up to a quarter
mile away1,2! So when
evidence of an animal is hidden from our vision, a dog can smell it out,
leading to more accurate estimates of a population. They also are able to cover
ground much faster on four legs than a team of humans3.
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| http://workingdogsforconservation.org/ |
The assessment of population numbers is one important way
that conservation canines assist scientists with ecological research. They can
be trained to locate live wildlife, for example flushing out birds or finding
nests, which allows the researchers to easily count individuals. They can facilitate
the detection of carcasses, allowing scientists to assess potential
environmental impacts of human artifacts such as pesticides or wind mills. Dogs
can also be trained to herd animals of interest in order to capture and mark
them for further tracking. The predatory instinct of a dog can be utilized to
assess the behavior of other species as well. Scientists can study the behavior
of an animal when a dog is present, acting as a faux predator. This assessment
of anti-predator behavior can be more efficient than waiting for an interaction
with the natural predator to occur 4.
Humans often use dogs to guard property or protect against
other humans, but they can also be used to protect against other species. The presence of
dogs can help manage human-wildlife conflict by deterring wildlife from human
areas 4. The Anatolian shepherd was bred in Turkey to protect
livestock from wolves, and the breed is now being employed in Namibia by the Cheetah
Conservation Fund. This organization is providing local herders with these dogs
to reduce conflict between people and cheetahs. With the Anatolian shepherds guarding
their livestock, the local people have stopped shooting and poisoning the
cheetahs 5.
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| http://cheetah.org/what-we-do/human-wildlife-conflict/ |
The canine ability to detect animal scat is extremely useful
in determining many characteristics of an animal population. The location of
scat can help establish the distribution of a species in an ecosystem and
provide insight into their use of resources. It is an especially useful
research method when studying species living in dense forest or those that are
more elusive for people to detect. Researchers at the University of Washington
used dogs to detect grizzly bear scat in the Canadian Rockies and determine
whether the bears were coming close to areas of high human density. They also
analyzed the scat for hormones and parasites to assess physiological health
and determine whether the bears in close contact to humans were more or less
healthy than those that stayed away.
The performance of the dogs used in this
study was compared to a variety of other ecological monitoring methods. The
results of the scat detection showed the same distribution of grizzly bears as
radio collaring them, but at 3% of the cost. The dogs were also able to detect
3 times as many individual bears in every square km than did a hair snag
technique 6. This demonstrates how scat detection dogs are an
excellent low cost and non-invasive alternative to collaring or trapping
animals in order to learn more about their ecology. These feces finding dogs
have been used to monitor many different species including lizards, jaguars, gorillas
and even whales6, 7! Human scientist struggle to find whale scat in
the murky water, but a lab named Tucker’s ability is particularly impressive.
He demonstrates his skill in this video: http://www.nytimes.com/video/us/100000001745109/salty-dog.html?ref=us
Dogs are helping to conserve elephants in several different
ways. There are many teams of anti-poaching dogs throughout Africa helping
rangers track down the humans killing elephants for their tusks. One unit in
East Africa working with the organization Big Life, trains dogs to follow the
human scent on materials or even footprints left behind at a poaching site.
Dogs have led rangers to the poacher’s door as long as a day after the elephant
was killed. This impressive ability has added another deterrent to poachers
since many are afraid of the skills of these hounds 8. Some
anti-poaching dog units are also being trained as attack dogs to help protect
rangers.
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| https://biglife.org/on-the-ground/dogs-save-elephants-big-life-s-tracker-dogs |
Other pooches are working with customs officials to fight
the ivory trade by sniffing out elephant tusks traveling illegally through
airports and shipping ports. The dogs are able to search luggage much more
efficiently than humans and to do so without bias. The addition of two sniffer
dogs, Cooper and Lumi, to the Gabonese government’s detection team has
motivated the other law enforcement agents to work harder in friendly competition with the dogs 9. Using dogs to combat the trade of illegal wildlife could make it
harder for corrupt officials to allow ivory trinkets or endangered animal skins to pass
through customs. It’s difficult to bribe a canine who knows a play reward
awaits the discovery of these wildlife products.
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| http://www.awf.org/projects/canine-detection-unit |
Countless pups are employed to help us and the many other species we are working to conserve. Their abilities far exceed humans in detecting invasive plants,
illegal snares, and evidence of animals. They can travel quickly over large
areas and be used in remote places, as long as a handler can keep up! The dogs' sense of smell is even refined enough to distinguish between scat from two
individuals of the same species. The possibilities are endless for training
dogs for future employment in conservation efforts! Amazingly, the only payment
that these pups require comes in the form of fuzzy tennis ball or a bout of tug
of war with their human partner. Dogs are certainly the best friend of man and through conservation work they can be a
friend of wildlife as well.
Here are a couple of organizations training and implementing
teams of dogs in conservation efforts:
Resources
1Syrotuck, W. G. 2000. Scent and the scenting
dog. Second edition. Arner Publishing, Rome, New York, USA.
2 Bryson, S. 1991. Search dog training. Howell
Book House, Chicago.
3 Mecozzi, G.E., & Guthery F.S. 2008.
Behavior of walk-hunters and pointing dogs during northern bobwhite hunts. Journal
of Wildlife Management. 72, 1399-1404.
4 Dahlgren, D. K. et al. 2012. Use of dogs in wildlife
research and management. Pgs 140-153 in N. Silvy, editor, Wildlife Techniques
Manual, Vol. 1, 7th ed. The Wildlife Society Inc. Washington D. C.,
USA.
8 https://biglife.org/on-the-ground/dogs-save-elephants-big-life-s-tracker-dogs
9 http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/25/world/africa/poaching-stinks-dogs-sniffing/
