This has certainly stirred up some discussion over on Twitter, so in the interest of capturing it here for future searchablity and discovery I will continue to pull them over into this thread. The first discussion centred around the idea of using detection dogs:
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You *could* train a dog to not mind sudden restraint; you'd need a Kevlar outfit for her tho.
— jess (@earlyelliott) May 24, 2017
I'm assuming these are foot snares.
Also, whoever sets the snare must have a way to find them
— jess (@earlyelliott) May 24, 2017
Looking into it more, it might get tight enough to cause pain. Easier to teach to sniff out.
— jess (@earlyelliott) May 24, 2017
You could use a dog small enough that she wouldn't set off the traps.
— jess (@earlyelliott) May 24, 2017
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Secondly, this is interesting because it's some out of the box thinking. My thoughts went more high tech, mainly because of the scale
— Stephanie O'Donnell (@Steph_ODonnell) May 24, 2017
I agree that this is a really interesting idea. Not sure if doge have been used in this context before.
— Sam Williams (@_sam_williams_) May 25, 2017
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84000 snares found in one conservancy in less than 10 years? That is a lot of snares to detect
— Stephanie O'Donnell (@Steph_ODonnell) May 24, 2017
Wow that's a lot! Could probably use a metal detector along common paths, then
— jess (@earlyelliott) May 24, 2017
Dogs could play a role on a more local scale - e.g. help foot patrols find snares in areas identified as hotspots by drone-mounted sensors
— Sam Williams (@_sam_williams_) May 25, 2017
Leopards tend to use the same paths, right? Easier to de-snare wildlife corridors.
— jess (@earlyelliott) May 25, 2017
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Great idea. Do you think it would be possible to train dogs to sniff out wire snares?
— Sam Williams (@_sam_williams_) May 25, 2017
Yes, they are used to find mines, ammunition, guns. Easier in wild w no other metal smells!
— jess (@earlyelliott) May 25, 2017
An interesting choice would be giant rats. Too small to set off snares https://t.co/MdFIvHYnoe
— jess (@earlyelliott) May 25, 2017
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Rachel, or perhaps one of the members of our Conservation Dogs group, have you had any experience using detection dogs in this manner? If they were indeed effective at detecting snares, this would still be a local, small-scale solution, surely? Given you're looking into radar, are you more interested in technologies that offer a large-scale detection range?