Conservation detection dogs help biologists find a range of hard-to-find targets, from invasive and endangered species, to animal scat to poachers.
Collette Yee
Collette Yee
When Collette Yee was first assigned to work with Jack, she did not think the partnership would work.
“I felt like it was impossible to connect with him. He didn’t want anything to do with me. He would just like take off running into the woods and go look for whatever fun thing he could go find to do, which wasn’t necessarily running the exercise,” she recalls.
Jack is a blue healer mix and Yee is his bounder, a term for people who work with conservation detection dogs at Rogue Detection Teams in Rice, Washington. Bounders and their dogs assist biologists in locating hidden, hard-to-find and invisible samples in the wild, from plants to pangolins to poop. And Yee and Jack proved to be the quite the duo.
Once the pair left the training facility for their first real job, Jack changed. “He was a completely different dog. He had calmed down. He was curious. … This is a dog that gets bored very quickly,” says Yee, who has been partnered with Jack every since.
The two have found endangered bumblebee nests, invasive green crabs, Washington ground squirrels and many other things — all in the name of science and conservation.
Plus, a lot of poop.
Animal scat can give biologists a wealth of information about their health. Collecting it this way is less invasive than capturing and sedating animals.
That’s how Yee ended up at the front of a small marine boat, standing over Jack, hoping he would lead her to whale poop before the transient material broke up and sank.
After scent training Jack by first hiding whale scat on land, then in a floating container in the water, Yee nervously watched Jack’s every move on the boat while looking for the real thing. “I’m looking at which side of his nostril is flaring. I’m looking at, is he tasting the air?” she says.
Then, all the training came together.
“I would see his eyes close a little bit and his nose stick up,” and she would look around to see see little specks in the water. The whale biologists confirmed Jack’s find.
Jack, and dogs like him, are part of a growing field of detection dogs that provide another tool for conservation biologists.
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Today’s episode was produced by Rachel Carlson. It was edited by Rebecca Ramirez and Gisele Grayson. Tyler Jones checked the facts. Kwesi Lee was the audio engineer.
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