Dogs cruise creeks on paddleboards to sniff out and help the vulnerable platypus

ABC NEWS (Australia)

Scientists at Victoria's Healesville Sanctuary are using trained sniffer dogs on paddleboards to track and identify platypuses in their habitat. The dogs, dubbed the "paddle pups", are helping scientists find the shy animals without disturbing their habitat.

Transcript

00:00The detection dog program is something that we run on site here for a range of different

00:07species and I survey the local creek that runs through Hillsville Sanctuary every year

00:13and one day I was just talking to some of the detection dog officers about the challenges

00:18in surveying for them as a species because they're very hard to not only see in the wild

00:23but also to capture as well and the dogs their sense of smell is so cute that they're actually

00:31able to detect a platypus while it's asleep in its burrow and it's actually a more accurate

00:38method of determining how many animals are in the population than going out and trying

00:43to survey for them.

00:44I feel like you need to see the pictures which we're playing right now to be able to understand

00:48what they're doing and what the dogs are doing and how they're using these paddle boards.

00:52What happens when they do detect the platypus habitat?

00:56So the dogs are trained to give an alert once they do pick up the scent of the platypus they'll

01:03refine it to the location and they're actually able to detect the entrance of the burrow which

01:08is something I even struggle to find because they're usually very well concealed.

01:14The alert usually looks like a sit but sometimes that's challenging in the water so they might

01:19freeze and also then look at their handler indicating that they've located the animal and that's

01:25when they get some tasty treats as a reward and usually something else that they really

01:31like so one of them likes to play ball afterwards and that's his special treat for locating the

01:35platypus and the other one usually gets like a lick mat with some peanut butter on it.

01:40So what do you do with the information?

01:43So we record the GPS location of where the animal's been located and we can then work out how many

01:51animals are within a population. We can also use this method to survey an area where people might be

01:58doing some construction just to check if there's a platypus before we start digging into the bank as well.

02:04Now alongside of all of this, there's a new sanctuary at the Healesville Sanctuary

02:10specifically built for platypuses. Tell us what you're hoping to do with this sanctuary.

02:17This is a rescue and rehabilitation facility and it's designed to house wild platypuses that can't live in their habitat

02:27because it's been disturbed by something like bushfire or drought and will hold them temporarily

02:33until their habitat recovers and then release them back to the wild.

02:36It can also be used as a pre-release enclosure for animals that have come in with severe injuries

02:43and they need to build their fitness up before we can release them back to the wild.

02:47So it's been designed to replicate a complex stream environment.

02:53If you think of your local creek or river, it's actually got a lot of complexity to it.

02:58There's lots of different levels of water ranging from very shallow to very deep

03:03and the water flow changes very regularly. It can either be very gentle and shallow

03:09and after rain the water level will rise quite rapidly and you'll get a really fast flow.

03:15The animals need to be able to deal with these conditions when they go back to the wild.

03:18And this I suppose will allow you to study the animals which are notoriously difficult to see in the wild.

03:23Yeah, that's right. So we've also got infrared cameras set up throughout the whole facility

03:28so we can monitor all of their behaviour and their activity patterns while they're living there.

03:33And this is the only way we've been państwo persons who've prohibited things.

03:37And this is the way they're really connected to the animals that link together.

Recommended

Category

Transcript

Recommended