"Scat Dogs" Sniff out Endangered Species Feces

Conservation Dogs…. Dogs with Jobs

Over the course of the next few weeks, we will be discussing “dogs with jobs.” I bet you will amazed and surprised as to just how many jobs these special creatures have, and how vital it is to preserve our relationship with canines.

Meet Tucker, perched out on the bow of a small boat racing across Puget Sound, Tucker can catch the scent of killer whale scat from as far away as a nautical mile.
When he whiffs its salmony smell, the 60 lb lab leans hard over the bow, so hard that his owner has to hold onto him with all his might as the captain then points the boat in the direction of Tuckers’ nose.

Tucker is one of the few dogs in the world, who has been used to track whale scat on the open ocean. Scat provides scientists with a mother lode of biological information about an animal from its diet to its genetics. It can tell them if an animal is sick or affected by toxins. In scat, scientists hope to find the answers to profound questions such as why right whales have note flourished.
“Before commercial whaling nearly finished them off, an estimated 100,000 right whales plied the cold northern Atlantic. By the time a world wide hunting ban went into effect in the 1930s, only about 100 called those waters home; some 70 years later, their population still only numbers a mere 300 – 350.”

Thanks to Tucker and his colleagues, answers to these types of mysterious may some day be revealed. Ship strikes and habitat destruction are suspected, but scientist Rosalind Rolland and her husband, Wasser; of the New England Aquarium also wonders if the female whales are not conceiving.

So do you think its as easy as training your dog to differentiate the scent of scat from other animal feces? Absolutely not says Wasser, “the dog is only as good as his human team.” At first Wasser underestimated the distance at which Tucker could pick up the scent, arriving at the empty stretch of water that Tucker seemed to have indicated. Wasser assumed the scat had sunk and in fact the team did not go far out enough.

While searching in the Bay of Fundy, Puget Sound made the task tricky. The boat must move perpendicular to the with wind so that Tucker can catch a scent, but give the sound’s, many straits and gaps between islands, wind direction shifts constantly. This makes reading Tuckers’ signs more tricky and requires a very good understanding between dog and handler, and trust….. like it should be in any dog-human relationship.

Their research has begun, and although it is not completed yet, coinciding with their hypothesis, the scientists are finding a link between a severe drop in thyroid hormones indicating that whales are not getting enough to eat, thus the orcas are dying off by starvation.