Conservation Dogs

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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!

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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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@Ziggy
| She/Her

Aquatic biologist focused on aquatic invasive species and freshwater pearly mussels

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@mattaudette
| he, him, his

Software Tester and Test Automator at Wildlife Protection Solutions

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1 Discussions
24 Groups

@kricherds
| she/her

Technologist. Civic Science Fellow & Data Inclusion Specialist at OEDP.

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14 Groups

@lukeshoemaker

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5 Groups

@CitlalliMJ6
| she/her

Conservation biologist, executive director at the Tesoro Escondido Reserve Foundation in the Ecuadorian Chocó, working on participatory action research, environmental education, primate and amphibian conservation

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7 Groups

@Erika_Barthelmess

St. Lawrence University

Professor of Biology at St. Lawrence University

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2 Discussions
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@jnsanchez

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@antonab

World Wide Fund for Nature/ World Wildlife Fund (WWF)

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7 Discussions
12 Groups

@Peter_Apps

Botswana Predator Conservation Trust

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85 Discussions
10 Groups

@Danielkoroso

Dedicated wildlife conservationist with over three years of hands-on experience in field research and conservation. Through extensive fieldwork i developed a strong foundation in various conservation techniques, including camera trap deployment, plant inventory methods.

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9 Groups

@MartinaL

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@Lenny

University of British Columbia

Postdoc at UBC, exploring how drones enhance wildlife conservation using thermal cameras & AI tools to refine monitoring of large mammal populations in Canada & compare these approaches to traditional methods.

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Description	Activity	Replies	Groups	Updated
Scouring the Desert for a Seabird	"To find the elusive white-vented storm petrel, researchers spent years scouring the desolate Atacama Desert, using dogs to help sniff...		Conservation Dogs	4 years 4 months ago
Training methodology for canine scent detection of a critically endangered lagomorph: a conservation case study	"This paper describes the training methodology used to investigate the ability of a scent detection dog to locate live riverine...		Conservation Dogs	4 years 4 months ago
Video; Hunting for Hawkweed with detection dogs Research Thesis	This is great! I would love to learn more about how search area and transects affect detection. I look forward to reading her articles.		Conservation Dogs	4 years 4 months ago
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	This is awesome!! Thanks for sharing. Reading about doggo's for "work" (and fun) is so lovely		Conservation Dogs	4 years 4 months ago
A case study in canine detection of giant bullfrog scent	"When presented with the challenge of detecting P. adspersus scent amid other amphibian scents (species identification test),...		Conservation Dogs	4 years 5 months ago
"One of the ‘world’s worst’ invasive species"	A news article regarding the invasive North American red-eared slider turtle in Australia and the use of dogs to support conservation...		Conservation Dogs	4 years 5 months ago
Benefits of incorporating a scat-detection dog into wildlife monitoring	Benefits of incorporating a scat-detection dog into wildlife monitoring: a case study of Pyrenean brown bear. Conservation detector dogs...		Conservation Dogs	4 years 5 months ago
Journal of Vertebrate Biology - Conservation Canine Papers	"This issue features 14 papers from seven countries in Africa and Europe and one review paper with global coverage, focusing on dog...		Conservation Dogs	4 years 5 months ago
New Group Manager - Introduction	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	Conservation Dogs	4 years 5 months ago
Using a Wildlife Detector Dog for Locating Eastern Indigo Snakes	Check out this very helpful paper on how detector dogs were trained to conduct surveys to find the threatened Eastern Indigo Snake....		Conservation Dogs	4 years 6 months ago
Rogue Detection Dogs Webinar - Free	This is a recording of an interview with Rogue Detection Dogs about their work: "In this webcast, we learn all about how this work...		Conservation Dogs	4 years 6 months ago
Poison Detection Dogs for Wolf Conservation	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		Conservation Dogs	4 years 6 months ago

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