In recent decades, the use of dogs in conservation work has exploded. Deployed to detect things like invasive or elusive species, scat, poachers, illegal wildlife trade products, and much more, conservation dog teams are trained to aid teams in the field. With benefits like speedier searches over large areas, proven targeted detection accuracy, and ease of transport and surveying, conservation dogs also offer possibilities for enhancing other technological methods by confirming or providing results in real-time.
Conservation dog teams now provide scat, reptile, aquatic species, whale scat, and invasive plant detection, and plenty more. This expansion of use is partly due to refined training techniques that offer a broader capability in very specialized detection roles, and partly due to more people seeing the capabilities and benefits of trained dogs.
Specifically, the utilization of dogs in conservation has experienced a considerable increase in recent years as people realize what the capability brings to the field survey arena. The benefits of dogs offering enhanced detection to support surveys includes:
- Speed of search
- Covering large areas effectively
- Proven detection capability
- Calibrated on a variety of species, if required
- Accuracy in the detection of targets and ignoring similar non-target specimens
- And easy to transport to survey sites.
Whether you train, handle, use, or are interested in finding out more about conservation dogs, this is the community for you! This group is growing, so if you'd like to get started and make connections here, here are some suggestions:
- Do you have advice to share with others who are interested in trying conservation dog work for the first time? Or do you need advice on whether conservation dogs suit your work?
- Do you have resources or research to share on training or using conservation dogs?
- Do you have a case study or project update that involves conservation dogs?
- Do you have a question about how to access conservation dogs for your own work?
Your group manager is Paul Bunker. Direct message him through WILDLABS or email him here with any questions or suggestions.
Header photo: Bill, photographed by Stephanie O'Donnell
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Senior biometrician, with the Nature Conservancy science team, attempting to bring vigor from diverse fields such as landscape ecology, spatial statistics, remote sensing and applied mathematics to answer practical conservation questions.
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Supporting wildlife monitoring in remote Pacific Islands
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University of Maryland Center for Environmental Science
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I'm a conservationist working in the Vulture conservation space in South Africa with a huge passion for technology.
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Passionate and curious about nature and its diversity, I seek to learn more about conservation, new technologies, and the unknown and infinite environmental world.
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This article discusses a project utilizing canines to detect the scat of a critically endangered mammal, the Saola.
10 December 2023
Published paper attached
14 November 2022
Article
Ceres Tag sends just in time alerts and GPS location to have the power to track and trace.
22 July 2022
Today we're talking to Paul Bunker, owner of Chiron K9, a canine consultancy company specializing in detection, author of the workbook Imprint Your Detection Dog in 15 Days, a resource aimed at providing tools to get...
7 May 2021
November 2023
event
Description | Activity | Replies | Groups | Updated |
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This is awesome!! Thanks for sharing. Reading about doggo's for "work" (and fun) is so lovely |
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Conservation Dogs | 3 years 2 months ago | |
"When presented with the challenge of detecting P. adspersus scent amid other amphibian scents (species identification test),... |
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Conservation Dogs | 3 years 2 months ago | |
A news article regarding the invasive North American red-eared slider turtle in Australia and the use of dogs to support conservation... |
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Conservation Dogs | 3 years 2 months ago | |
Benefits of incorporating a scat-detection dog into wildlife monitoring: a case study of Pyrenean brown bear. Conservation detector dogs... |
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Conservation Dogs | 3 years 2 months ago | |
"This issue features 14 papers from seven countries in Africa and Europe and one review paper with global coverage, focusing on dog... |
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Conservation Dogs | 3 years 2 months ago | |
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... |
+11
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Conservation Dogs | 3 years 3 months ago | |
Check out this very helpful paper on how detector dogs were trained to conduct surveys to find the threatened Eastern Indigo Snake.... |
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Conservation Dogs | 3 years 3 months ago | |
This is a recording of an interview with Rogue Detection Dogs about their work: "In this webcast, we learn all about how this work... |
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Conservation Dogs | 3 years 3 months ago | |
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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Conservation Dogs | 3 years 3 months ago | |
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1002/aqc.3531#aqc3531-bib-0028 |
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Conservation Dogs | 3 years 3 months ago | |
Hello Conservation Dogs group members WildTrack (wildtrack.org) has just joined WildLabs and we have a new community forum FIT (... |
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Conservation Dogs | 4 years ago | |
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... |
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Conservation Dogs | 4 years 4 months ago |