By Romaine Cristescu, Detection Dogs for Conservation
Conservation dogs are specially trained to help scientists and conservationists protect wildlife and ecosystems.
Most conservation dogs in Australia are sniffer dogs – except for the oddball (as in the movie of the same name)! Instead of sniffing out drugs or explosives, these dogs use their powerful noses to help the environment. Australia has some amazing sniffer dogs doing great things for conservation. The following are some of my favourites.
Raasay
Border collie Raasay is a common cord grass (Spartina anglica) detection dog, working to detect, map and facilitate the eradication of this invasive weed, which, if left untreated, can push out native plants and the wildlife that depends on it. Raasay might be the coolest Australian conservation sniffer dog, as she is able to work from a kayak. Raasay isn’t called ‘Sassy Raasay’ for nothing. Raasay is very strong‑willed and expects to receive her ball reward pronto after she has done her job. And what if she thinks her humans are too slow? Well, she doesn’t mind telling them with an impatient woof.
Gromit and Zorro
Measuring the impact of the booming wind farm industry on Australia’s precious birds and bats is a sad but critical task that is so much more efficiently done by four‑legged investigators. Border collie Gromit and sprollie (border collie x English springer spaniel) Zorro specialise in sniffing out data around wind turbines, and the bird and bat fatalities they detect help wind farm operators to manage their turbines more sensitively for local wildlife.
There is another extra smelly target for Zorro, too – he is a Tasmanian masked owl vomit detection dog that we helped train. Zorro is trained to sniff out the owls’ pellets – regurgitated bits of indigestible prey – which tells researchers the birds are active in the area.
Daisy
Daisy, a pocket rocket Lagotto Romagnolo, is one of a team of dogs who smells out dragons! Not the mythical kind, but the Victorian grassland earless dragon that, prior to 2023, had not been seen since 1969. The Zoos Victoria team is possibly even more famous for its focus on detecting zombie fingers (aka tea‑tree fingers fungus Hypocreopsis amplectens), a critically endangered Australian fungus.
