DEC’s newly developed Dogs for Invasive Species Control (DISC) program in collaboration with the New York-New Jersey Trail Conference has recently begun, meaning scent detecting dogs are now available to help sniff out invasive species across the state of New York! Dogs have a sense of smell up to 100,000 times more powerful than humans and can detect invasive species that are nearly impossible to locate with traditional survey methods.
Each dog on the team is trained using the same scent detection protocols used for search-and-rescue and forensic K-9 units. Since these dogs locate species by scent, they can easily find invasive species that are difficult to locate by sight alone. Some are hard to identify without lab testing, others are distributed across large areas of land, and many use natural camouflage and go unseen by the average human eye. Searching by scent allows this team to overcome these challenges.
These dogs have been involved in conservation efforts focused on:
• Detecting scotch broom at Letchworth State Park in western New York;
• Public outreach and education at the Saratoga County Fair;
• Detecting zebra and quagga mussels at boat launches across the state;
• Training to deploy in the detection of shrubby bushclover and pepperweed; and
• Detecting and removing kudzu within New York City, Long Island, and the Lower Hudson Valley.
When these charismatic dogs are on the job, surveys and management projects are more effective and efficient. These dogs learn to work closely with their handler to navigate a wide variety of environmental conditions, maximize the amount of land covered, improve the accuracy of detections, and minimize any kind of ecological disruption to the surveyed land. The DISC program works in collaboration with land managers, scientists, and conservation organizations to detect and manage invasive species, monitor the health of New York’s lands, support new and ongoing research, promote stewardship within their local communities, and bring smiles to spectators.
For more information visit: https://www.nynjtc.org/conservation-dogs/
