(Photo: Eco Dogs)
Researchers at Auburn University have been training dogs to help them gather data about endangered species. The dogs are taught to recognize the scat of endangered animals.
Identifying eastern spotted skunk scat is the specialty of Sophie, a 15 month old black lab. Another dog has been trained to identify striped skunk scat. The program is called Eco Dogs, and there are about eight dogs working in it now.
Eastern spotted skunks are very difficult to find and collect data for, as the researchers have noted, "Over the past two years, we have taken more than 600,000 photos with game cameras and we only got two photos of eastern spotted skunks." They have obtained only one photograph from game cameras of the endangered long-tailed weasel, and will train a dog to identify scat from that species.
The detection dogs could help find populations of the eastern spotted skunk, and other endangered animals, so more conventional research methods (like photo identification) can be employed.
Over the summer the dogs will also be used to help gather information on black bears in both Florida and Alabama. They wear GPS devices so when they find scat, their locations can be identified and recorded. The dogs are trained to sit by the scat they find until their human counterparts can catch up to them, and log the details.
Some of the dogs might also be trained to identify mountain lion scat. Mountain lions in Alabama are so infrequently seen there, and possibly not at all, because it isn't in their range. Sightings are called in once in a while, but officials believe they are probably just bobcats or coyotes. Using the detection dogs could help prove, or disprove the presence of mountain lions.
According to the Eco Dogs website, detection dogs have also been used to find whale scat floating in water, live seal dens under snow, live desert tortoises, termites, and other animals.
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