Background
Our Story
Working Dogs for Conservation (WDC) formed in 2000 to collect information-rich wildlife and plant samples using specially trained detection dogs.
One of the questions we often hear when we explain that we train dogs to find scat, plants and live animals is “why?”
By locating scat samples we are able to identify species’ presence, abundance, food habits, parasite loads, and habitat use. Analyses of hormones extracted from scats can show reproductive status while genetic analyses of the DNA contained in scat is used to identify species, sex and individuals, and determine population size, home range, paternity and kinship.
When our dogs systematically find these data-rich deposits, we increase the information available for species preservation. The same is true when our dogs locate rare, cryptic live animals on the landscape—we learn more about their habitat requirements and areas where they need increased protection. In the case of invasive species, both plant and animal, locating new arrivals or the last vestiges of a population is one of the most powerful tools in eradication efforts.
After spending years testing our dogs and our skills as trainers to teach them to locate crucial on-the-ground information, we now focus our work with researchers and managers to address three conservation priorities:
1) Corridors & connectivity
2) Invasive species
3) Wildlife monitoring (e.g., renewable energy impacts, reducing human-wildlife conflict)
Our Dogs
Our Dogs
We look for extremely high energy dogs that have an obsessive play drive and an unrelenting toy focus, making these dogs difficult, if not impossible, to keep in a family home. In fact, many of the dogs used for conservation work by WDC are rescued from shelters.
Meet ours…
Projects
Finding Gorillas in Cameroon
In December 2011 and January 2012, Wicket, Lily and Orbee went deep into the jungles of Cameroon to seek out dung samples of the Cross River gorilla, the world’s most endangered ape. Rare and shy, the species was once thought to be extinct, only to be rediscovered 20 years ago. By current estimates about 300 [...]
Six in the Far North
In August we spent 18 days in Kobuk Valley National Park fifty miles north of the Arctic Circle, to participate in a bear conservation project with the National Park Service. During our time there Wicket, Lily and Orbee were all hard at work, crossing sand dunes (yes, sand dunes!), clambering in and out of mosquito-infested [...]
