Nessie the conservation detection dog
I'm Mandy and this is Nessie my conservation detection dog and she's an English Springer Spaniel so we're down here on Middleton Beach and the south coast of the Fleurieu Peninsula and we're working with Nessie the conservation dog to try and find Fox dens across our beaches and coastal areas. She's able to get up into the dunes look under shrubs like this and really get to places where we can't find Fox dens. The beach nesting birds that we have on the south coast are quite varied but theones particularly we're looking at today are hooded plovers or as we like to call them hoodies. We know that hooded plovers naturally are listed as vulnerable under the EBPC act and within our region here on the Fleurieu peninsula in Adelaide we only have 70 hooded plovers left. We've lost numerous nests, eggs to predation from foxes and also the chicks.
Just to watch her work and see her finding the dens. Foxes are such threat to the hooded plovers that we're hoping that this is going to increase their success of breeding. She'll be working along clearing an area and she'll suddenly get the scent of the fox den and she'll follow that scent to the actual den location. She'll put her nose right down into the den and go into a down position and that lets me know hey mom found a den. Her Handler will GPS the location and then we give those GPS points to our contractor and the contractor comes out and he'll fumigate the dens and collapse them and remove them so even if there's no fox living in there there's nowhere for a fox to come back to. And she is trained to mostly locate active dens but she can still locate inactive dens.
Being able to, I suppose locate a fox den we're going straight to where a fox lives and we're doing this especially around areas of conservation importance like where the hooded plover nests.
There's plenty of other native animals using those dunes that the foxes prey on. The advantages of using a detection dog to locate the source is that they're faster, and generally actually more reliable than humans or trapping. Nessie's gone through and she's found a fox den within minutes. For us to find that would be near impossible, it was under a shrub as dense as this and it's such a quick and effective method of finding foxes.Trapping foxes and rabbits actually become quite savvy about cages so they'll actually avoid them. They can't hide their den, not from a dog.
The work of Nessie the conservation dog has been funded by Green Adelaide with support of the Hooded Plover Project partners. The Hooded plover project is jointly coordinated by Green Adelaide, Landscapes Hills and Fleurieu and BirdLife Australia with support from local councils. It is funded by Green Adelaide and Landscapes Hills and Fleurieu, through funding from the Australian Government’s National Landcare Program.
source: Landscapes Hills & Fleurieu
In an effort to protect Australia’s most threatened beach-nesting birds, Green Adelaide has enlisted the services of a trained conservation dog to detect the dens of one of their biggest threats – European foxes – on Adelaide’s beaches.
For hooded plovers during nesting season, foxes are a significant threat to their eggs and chicks, with disturbance by people and off-lead dogs also a major concern.
Green Adelaide Coast and Seas Team Leader Tony Flaherty said the aim of detecting and managing fox dens is to disrupt patterns of fox behaviour, such as foraging on beaches and targeting nests, which will hopefully provide some respite to breeding birds and improve their chick’s chance of survival.
“Finding fox dens can be a laborious task for humans, but, Nessie, an English springer spaniel, took just minutes to sniff out the elusive fox dens,” Mr Flaherty said.
“Nessie’s discoveries across Adelaide’s hooded plover nest sites would have taken human conservation teams hours to find and will hopefully prove to be an effective way of managing the threat of this pest species.
“At some sites, birds are attempting to nest multiple times due to fox predation and dog and human disturbances.”
Nessie has been professionally trained by Conservation Dogs SA, where she learnt to track fox scent, before hitting the beaches in search of their dens.
“At our first site, it took Nessie about 10 minutes to find the first fox den and another 5 to find the second,” Mr Flaherty said.
“At another site, where no dens had been found by a human search, Nessie was able to find a well-concealed den in just 8 minutes.
“Once a den is detected, we work with landowners to manage the threat and in turn, minimise the impact of foxes on these threatened birds.”
Detection dogs like Nessie are used throughout Australian to protect a range of wildlife such as koalas, flying foxes and lizards, and to detect noxious weeds and even marine pests from boats.
“The use of conservation dogs to detect foxes has so far proven to be very efficient and effective,” Mr Flaherty said.
“We are also looking to train dogs for other conservation work, such as threatened plant and butterfly larval detection.”
English springer spaniels are working dogs with an incredible sense of smell, making them ideal sniffer dogs.
Nessie is a highly trained conservation dog, is always very responsive to commands and remains under effective control at all times.
She is clearly identifiable with a hi-vis vest and temporary signage is placed at the site when the dog is at work.
The Hooded Plover project is coordinated by BirdLife Australia in partnership with Green Adelaide and the Hills and Fleurieu Landscape Board, with support from local councils, and is funded by Green Adelaide with additional support from the Australian Government through the Hills and Fleurieu Landscape Board.
There are about 32 hooded plover breeding pairs monitored and actively managed on the Fleurieu and Adelaide metropolitan coast as part of the project.
Threats to nesting are regularly assessed and have been analysed through intensive monitoring of hooded plovers.
source: Green Adelaide
