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Conservation dogs are making a difference in conservation through their noninvasive ability to detect elusive species in the wild, flag illegal wildlife trade products, and help poachers fight wildlife crime. Whether you work with conservation dogs, you're interested in incorporating them into your work, or you just want to learn about how dogs can support and enhance conservation technology's effectiveness, you're in the right place!

discussion

Crop Protection Dogs: Advice Requested

Antoine Ede

27 May 2021 5:53am

Dear All, Just a hybrid subject between conservation dogs and human wildlife conflict.   I wanted to know if some of you experienced "crop protection dogs...

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Chavoux Luyt

7 June 2021 10:29am

Hi Antoine,

I have worked extensively with livestock guarding dogs (Anatolians) in the past. The effectiveness of this conflict mitigation method depends largely on how well the dog and the livestock bond to each other. It makes use of the pack instinct of the dogs, bonding to the livestock as his pack to defend from attackers (including other predators).

So the first question would be what typical dog behaviour do you want to exploit for your "crop protection dogs"? I would assume that you want to use territorial behaviour as the basis of the dogs protecting the croplands as "their" territory. So your training should focus on this (not sure how you would do it, though). The second issue could be that the dogs might not recognize elephants as intruders into their territory; i.e. they might be come used to the presence of crop-raiding elephants over time -- I really do not know dog-elephant interactions well enough to make a prediction on how this might play out.

A third  potential issue that you need to think about, is exactly how effective the barking dogs will be as deterrents. Even if they warn the local farmers, will the farmers be able to drive the elephants away without danger to themselves? And will the dogs be effective in deterring the elephants, or rather be an irritant that makes the elephants (more) aggressive? I don't know. Will the dogs actually attack the elephants, or be scared of them (and maybe run away towards the village while being chased by the elephants)?

I think if you can address all of these points effectively, there is a good chance that this approach will succeed.

Cheers,

Chavoux

Antoine Ede

14 June 2021 11:21am

Dear Chavoux,

 

thank you for your reply, you perfectly summarize the challenges of this project. I will add another one: dog care, community in Congo are not used to take care of their dog and guarding dogs will probably have to be feed.

As you said, all the point have to be addressed.

In order to partially answer, I will give a story from one of the village around Odzala:

An old man in the village was using his dogs to protect his crops, it seems that the dogs were going to the crops each night and deter the elephant from it. This solution seems to have work during several years and elephant would prefer to go to other crops (displacement of the problem). Unfortunately, one day, the dogs disappear one by one, I don't have all the information yet, but  this could be the results of elephant attack, neighbour's jealousy, limited dogs care?

So it seems possible to actively use dog to protect the crop from elephant.

Regarding farmers, for some of them, they are already guarding their crops, but it has a heavy impact on their live. Dogs could improve this situation by alerting the farmer sleeping in his house nearby. He could sleep properly and be awake only when there is a real threat.

All the best,

Antoine.

 

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discussion

Detection dogs in nature conservation: A database on their world‐wide deployment with a review on breeds used and their performance compared to other methods

Paul Bunker

4 March 2021 8:56pm

A comprehensive review of conservation dogs: "1,220 publications, including 916 scientific ones, covering 2,464 individual cases—most of them (1,840) scientific....

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Carly Batist

18 March 2021 4:14pm

This is awesome!! Thanks for sharing. Reading about doggo's for "work" (and fun) is so lovely  

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discussion

New Group Manager - Introduction

Paul Bunker

16 January 2021 11:04pm

Hello all, My name is Paul Bunker, Principal of Chiron K9, LLC, a canine consulting and training company based in San Antonio, Texas, USA. However, I am originally from the...

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Peter Apps

12 February 2021 7:17pm

Thank you for taking this on.

My particular interests are using local dogs trained by local people for scat detection (broadly defined), and how to evaluate and certify their performance. Local dog Toffee indicating on a training target; 

Paul Bunker

12 February 2021 8:27pm

Thank you!

i know several organizations, including  my own, that believe a valuable approach is local dogs and people supporting conservation in their own community is the best answer. Supported, where needed, by professional trainers/instructors to get them to a point they can be operational. 

Great photo! 

Kate Wing

18 February 2021 12:12am

If and when you're ready to get a ton of attention (and maybe fundraise) for your conservation dog work send those pix to @dog_rates as I'm sure Matt would love to feature your pups.

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discussion

Poison Detection Dogs for Wolf Conservation

Roberta Bottaro

3 February 2021 12:47pm

Good morning,  i am Roberta from Italy. I am currently training 3 K9 units as poison detection dog for a LIFE WOLF ALPS EU project. These dogs are trained to search and...

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Paul Bunker

3 February 2021 5:51pm

I have seen posts on social media about poison detection dogs and I THINK I am connected to one of the teams. I will check. 

Paul

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discussion

List of grant opportunities for conservation dogs

Yvan Satgé

14 May 2018 9:48pm

Dear all, Do you know of any grants offered to train/provide environmental NGOs with conservation/detection dogs? I am involved in the International Black-capped Petrel...

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Heath623

27 April 2019 5:22pm

Just learned about this community and am super excited to see it exists. I wanted to comment on Conservation Canines (CK9). I served as the coordinator for CK9 for 18 years. The majority of CK9, including myself and its 17 dogs, have broken off and are trying to get a new program set up called Rogue Detection Teams! We are just getting our paws under us but we are all super excited to be unleashed from the University and embarking on a grand new adventure. Rogue Detection Teams can be reached at [email protected] and also found on Facebook @roguedogs and IG and Twitter at @roguedetection. We have a website in the works at Roguedogs.org but it is not up just yet. Looking forward to being a part of the community. Dogspeed!

Jennifer Hartman

3 January 2020 7:17pm

Hi Yvan, My name is Jennifer Hartman and I work with Rogue Detection Teams, a program that works with and instructs conservation detection dog teams. Did you ever receive enough information to pursue your project? If not, one, we'd love to learn of more opportunities ourselves, as we have many conservation projects that we would like to support and are unable to. Additionally, we have recently learned about a group, Midwest Conservation Dogs who just received a grant to train a new dog. I think it was a local grant but we're sure that they would be more than hh=appy to discuss with you how they received their grant. Most of our projects that we conduct, and we have worked on storm petrel burrows in Haida Gwaii, British Columbia, come from government funding or special program fudning (some past partners include The Nature Conservancy, World WIldlife Fund, various univeristies, etc.). We're happy to discuss how we might help to get your project off the ground, or if you have already conducted it, we'd love to learn how it went and how you were able to fund it. We can be reached at [email protected] or our website is at roguedogs.org. Warm regards in the New Year, Jennifer 

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discussion

Conservation dogs deployed in Assam to counter poaching

John Probert

26 June 2017 3:33pm

Hello all!  I personally love reading articles about how man's best friend is contributing to conserving some of the world's most imperiled species. I just came...

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Thomas Starnes

27 June 2017 11:09am

Countryfile Working Animals Compilation - 04:48 conservation dogs sniffing our bats and newts.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/b08wysbf/countryfile-working-animals-compilation

Jennifer Hartman

3 January 2020 7:13pm

Hi jprobert, my name is Jennifer Hartman and I work with Rogue Detection Teams. I wanted to share some other resources for you if you are still interested in learning more about conservatin detection dogs and thier applications. From live animals, invasive species as well as scat and toxin surveys, our teams have conducted a great many projects around the world and we're happy to talk shop with you. There are also several other detection dog groups around the world and if you would like to be put in touch with them, we're happy to assist. Please let us know if we can help. We can be reached at [email protected] or you can first check us out at roguedogs.org. Warm regards, Jennifer

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discussion

Reptile Detector Dogs

Stephanie O'Donnell

8 August 2016 11:35am

I was fascinated to discover that detector dogs can be used to locate difficult to find snakes: E.Kingsnake-looking ALL year for one! Amid the roots in a fallen tree&...

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Yvan Satgé

14 May 2018 9:37pm

Hi Steph and all,

I don't work with detector dogs directly but colleagues of mine in the Pedernales province of the Dominican Republic have used a dog to locate iguana nests in a dry environment. Iguana nests (which are underground) can be found by looking for a typical hole in the ground; unfortunately, a local species of spider makes a very similar hole, which make iguana nest searches difficult (since you don't want to break the nest open) and time-consuming. Biologists at Grupo Jaragua, a Dominican environmental NGO, thus trained a dog to successfuly smell for iguana nests. 

Their dog sadly died after eating poison intended to kill stray dogs but did find a number of iguana nests for several years.

- Yvan

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discussion

Detection dogs used for border control

Katrin Pfeil

5 April 2018 12:51pm

Hi community, We have started a detection dog programme to detect Saiga horn and support border control in Kazakstan. This programme has been started from scratch with...

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Megan Parker

26 April 2018 4:43pm

Hi Katrin,

We are working with Panthera in Kyrgyztan on wildlife trafficking at the border. I believe you may be in touch with the program? We have helped Border patrol layer on snow leopard, argali and saiga as well as falcons.  I would be happy to put you in touch with Aimee Hurt, who has worked there with the teams.  Or you can reach out to Tanya Rosen with Panthera to ask about that program. We are happy to help share experience.

 

Best, Megan

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discussion

Assessment of Detection and Tracking Dog Programs in Africa

Rachel Kramer

5 April 2016 7:43pm

For those who may not be aware, Working Dogs for Conservation (with support from the Elephant Crisis Fund) published a really valuable assessment in 2015 of detection and tracking...

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Marie Mainil

15 April 2016 5:45pm

Hi Rachel, the link seems to be broken, fyi.

 

Marie

 
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