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