K-9 Corridors
One of my favorite presentations so far at the SCB meeting was Jon P. Beckmann’s talk on his work in the Northern Rockies using scat-detecting dogs for a Wildlife Conservation Society project called, “Carnivore Connectivity in the Centennial Mountains.” Beckmann’s study centered on a remote region along the Idaho-Montana border that was thought to be a major corridor for grizzly bear, black bear, cougars, and wolves. A huge challenge in identifying and protecting wildlife corridors is gathering rich, reliable data on the movements of elusive carnivores over large expanses of space and time, and determining where obstacles and bottlenecks may exist. Cue the valiant dogs of the Three Forks, Montana-based Working Dogs for Conservation Foundation! Laboring for months to complete transects of 100 grid cells covering 600 square kilometers of terrain—some of the transects took more than 10 hours each—the dogs, which had been trained to detect the scats of specific carnivores, found 660 scats and 30 hair samples. DNA testing showed the dogs achieved 98% accuracy in identifying the samples.
The data provided a gold mine of highly accurate information that helped determine exactly where carnivore superhighways were located and what kinds of landscape features and human activities were causing critter gridlock or deleterious detours. The study findings resulted in the hiring of a full-time biologist working on connectivity in the Centennial Mountains for the Idaho Fish & Game department ; the BLM closed 40% of the roads in the western Centennials; and the study helped stop a 1200-home and 18-hole golf-course development that had been scheduled to be built right in the fast lane of this busy corridor.
To learn more about the Working Dogs for Conservation Foundation (or make a donation!), visit their website. A short documentary about these talented dogs can be seen here.
