Speaker 1: Welcome to More Outdoors on News Top five sixty klv I.
Speaker 1: This is Chester Moore and I'm really excited about today's guest.
Speaker 1: We've had him on before about a year ago. But
Speaker 1: the work this man and the organization he represents does
Speaker 1: is absolutely incredible. If you listen to this program, you
Speaker 1: know I'm all about wildlife conservation and you know I
Speaker 1: love dogs. I'm always talking about my bull master for
Speaker 1: my Doberman. Love dogs and I love working dogs. So
Speaker 1: on the light right now we have mister Pete Koppelilo.
Speaker 1: He is the executive director for Working Dogs for Conservation.
Speaker 1: Welcome to the program.
Speaker 2: Thanks, thanks for having me.
Speaker 1: Working Dogs for Conservation. Man, that's a mouthful. So explain
Speaker 1: to us out there who are maybe not really familiar
Speaker 1: with this, what Working Dogs for Conservation is all about.
Speaker 2: Yeah. Well, the short answer is that we train dogs
Speaker 2: to do conservation work however and wherever we can, and
Speaker 2: we take them all over the world to do it.
Speaker 2: You know. The longer answer is that that in the
Speaker 2: early days of our field and our organization, it was
Speaker 2: primarily the detection work and primarily ecological work, finding scats.
Speaker 2: You know, the big, the big development that really led
Speaker 2: to this field was was when it became possible to
Speaker 2: get DNA from fecal material and scats, and so at
Speaker 2: that point, everybody, you know it, there was a good
Speaker 2: reason to find all the scats that you could, whether
Speaker 2: you were looking for grizzly bears or wolverines or wolves,
Speaker 2: or African wild dogs or Siberian tigers and so so
Speaker 2: we started using dogs to do that, and I say
Speaker 2: we the broader collective conservation we I didn't join the
Speaker 2: organization until twenty twelve, but it was founded by by
Speaker 2: four women all from here in Montana, working working on
Speaker 2: why life and figuring out, you know, better, less invasive,
Speaker 2: less expensive, safer ways to find out about wildlife and
Speaker 2: protect them.
Speaker 1: Yeah, and I think that's a really really important thing,
Speaker 1: is about the way to find out about wildlife. I mean,
Speaker 1: these dogs are actually out there, maybe in the middle
Speaker 1: of you know, Siberia somewhere. Because of the genetics, they
Speaker 1: can get out a scat, for example, use their nose
Speaker 1: to find and maybe find even subpopulations of endangered animals
Speaker 1: like the Siberian or Amure tiger that people didn't know existed.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's exactly right, that's exactly right. And you know,
Speaker 2: back in the day, you know, we we were happy
Speaker 2: and impressed when we could identify a scat to species.
Speaker 2: And nowadays we can not only identify it to species,
Speaker 2: but we can tell you if it's a male or female.
Speaker 2: We can identify it as an individual, so we can
Speaker 2: know how many different individuals the scats that we collect
Speaker 2: came from. And we can even do things like pedigree
Speaker 2: and know who that individual is related to. So you know,
Speaker 2: for example, if you give us a bear scat, a
Speaker 2: dog finds a bear scat in an unlikely location, we
Speaker 2: can tell you whether that's a Northern Continental divide grizzly
Speaker 2: bear or a Yellowstone grizzly bear for example.
Speaker 1: Wow, that's pretty that's pretty impressive there.
Speaker 2: It's great.
Speaker 1: So but you pair that technology now with the old
Speaker 1: school technology of a dog's nose, I mean kind of
Speaker 1: almost going back to basics, but refining what that dog
Speaker 1: is built for.
Speaker 2: Yeah, it's amazing. It really is amazing. And you know,
Speaker 2: it's a it's a it's just a it's a cool combination.
Speaker 2: You know that we've been living with these canids for
Speaker 2: forty thousand years and and and co evolved with them.
Speaker 2: You know, dogs morphology is different. They've got muscles that
Speaker 2: wolves don't have in their eyes to communicate with us us.
Speaker 2: You know, it's just it really is. It's very cool.
Speaker 2: And you know, I say it all the time. People
Speaker 2: people love to hear about how sensitive and amazing dogs
Speaker 2: noses are, and they really are. But the truth is,
Speaker 2: the really extraordinary thing about a dog, the thing that
Speaker 2: enables us to do this work with them, is not
Speaker 2: necessarily their nose. Lots of species have amazing noses. What's
Speaker 2: amazing about a dog is the relationship to us and
Speaker 2: the desire to be around us and to work with us,
Speaker 2: and to communicate with us, and to you know, to
Speaker 2: work through all those you know, we go through these
Speaker 2: hand handed ways of asking them questions and they they
Speaker 2: figure it out and they work with us on it
Speaker 2: and get the job done in spite of how how
Speaker 2: poorly we speak dog.
Speaker 1: Yeah, exactly. It's like you guys are speaking a really
Speaker 1: bad Doberman dialect here today. But one of the things
Speaker 1: I found interesting when I first met with you guys
Speaker 1: through our mutual friends at the Wild Cheap Foundation, was
Speaker 1: it you're not necessary fairly using like a specialist breed.
Speaker 1: You guys are using like rescue dogs.
Speaker 2: Yep, yep, that's right. We actually select for their behavior
Speaker 2: and behavioral characteristics. And really it's simple. It's over simplification
Speaker 2: a little bit, but what we really look for is
Speaker 2: crazy ball drive or toy drive, you know. And and
Speaker 2: that's because this is this this job is really just
Speaker 2: a game for them. Basically. The the crux of what
Speaker 2: we do is is they figure out they're they're they're excited,
Speaker 2: crazy excited to play their game, you know, whether it's
Speaker 2: Patch or tug or whatever. And and and we create
Speaker 2: a game where if you find the target odor, or
Speaker 2: track the poacher, or or do discrimination we can talk.
Speaker 2: We'll get into the discrimination stuff a little later, but
Speaker 2: you know, you do the thing that I'm asking you for,
Speaker 2: and we get to play the game. And and you know,
Speaker 2: so that's that's not unique to any particular breed. And
Speaker 2: you know, we're relatively small. I mean in the conservation world,
Speaker 2: we're big for a conservation dog organization, but you know,
Speaker 2: relative to other working dog organizations like the US military
Speaker 2: or Customs and Border Protection, were tiny. And so even
Speaker 2: we just can't we're not an important customer when it
Speaker 2: comes to buying you know, these high end, fancy bread
Speaker 2: dogs from Europe. So even if we wanted to, we
Speaker 2: really you know, those those folks don't return my phone
Speaker 2: calls no matter what. And so you know, around nine
Speaker 2: to eleven, after nine eleven the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan,
Speaker 2: there was a global shortage in detection dogs, specialty bread
Speaker 2: detection dogs, and the price for them went up to
Speaker 2: twenty five fifty thousand dollars. So we just didn't have
Speaker 2: that kind of money back in the day. And those
Speaker 2: huge prices also drove a lot of disreputable breeders into
Speaker 2: the market.
Speaker 3: So pretty much, you know.
Speaker 2: Everybody in Eastern Europe who could get their hands on
Speaker 2: shepherds or mouths were breeding them. And what we saw
Speaker 2: is a resurgence of a lot of bad stuff like
Speaker 2: hip dysplasia and elbow displaysia, you know, congenital genetic problems
Speaker 2: and all that. And like I said, we don't have
Speaker 2: access to the reputable, high end breeders, and we're not
Speaker 2: going to do business with the disreputable ones. So it
Speaker 2: just made perfect sense, and it fit philosophically with a
Speaker 2: lot of the early dogs were rescued anyway, so it
Speaker 2: all fit and it all came together and we've doubled down,
Speaker 2: and I never say never. You know that there are
Speaker 2: great dogs that are rescued, but you know, there are
Speaker 2: also certain circumstances where it makes a lot more sense,
Speaker 2: like for example, with a green handler, where you really
Speaker 2: need to know a dog's early history and all that.
Speaker 2: So I don't want to throw shade on the people
Speaker 2: who who buy bread dogs. There are great bread dogs.
Speaker 2: There are lots of good reasons to do it because
Speaker 2: you know their history, you can them from the very beginning,
Speaker 2: and that's really a powerful thing and people do amazing
Speaker 2: things that way. But for us, you know, primarily our first,
Speaker 2: our go to is to rescue them.
Speaker 1: No, that makes I want to get that out because
Speaker 1: I think that's a really cool part of what you do.
Speaker 1: And also the fact that the ability to smell out
Speaker 1: these things is it necessarily just a trait of like
Speaker 1: a Belgian malanoy or a bloodhound or whatever it happens
Speaker 1: to be. So just real quick, give me just an
Speaker 1: overview of some of the breeds that are out there
Speaker 1: working for you guys right now.
Speaker 2: Well, I'm proud to say that the most common breed
Speaker 2: in our kennel.
Speaker 1: Is a mutt muting out.
Speaker 2: Yeah, we take mixed breeds, but we've got shepherds, we've
Speaker 2: got mouths, we've got a lot of labs. We've got
Speaker 2: at least one German short hair. You know, and people,
Speaker 2: you know, dog people are all are all funny, and
Speaker 2: I include myself in that. You know, the bloodhound people
Speaker 2: will say bloodhounds noses are this much better than everybody else's.
Speaker 2: And you know a lot of people, police and military
Speaker 2: folks are are really believe in their mouths and shepherds
Speaker 2: and they want to you know that they say, hey,
Speaker 2: you know a bloodhound, this might be predisposed to groundcent
Speaker 2: or you know a certain way of searching. I want
Speaker 2: a dog that's going to use all the tools in
Speaker 2: front of them. You know, the truth is every single
Speaker 2: one of these dogs is incredibly talented, even your you know,
Speaker 2: your little lap dogs and dogs that we don't think
Speaker 2: of working dogs have this ability. What's really exceptional that
Speaker 2: we look for that and is that drive, that drive
Speaker 2: to work, the persistence you know, to not only just
Speaker 2: want to play with the ball, but like to look
Speaker 2: for it for five, ten, fifteen minutes, maybe all day long.
Speaker 2: You know, it's it's it's those characteristics that really that
Speaker 2: really drive them. The truth is, you know, I don't
Speaker 2: think we go anywhere close to the lower end of
Speaker 2: what dogs are capable of.
Speaker 1: When we come back More Outdoors a News Top five six,
Speaker 1: we talk more with Pete Coppolila with Working Dogs for Conservation.
Speaker 1: Welcome back to More Outdoors on News Talk five sixty
Speaker 1: of Chester More. Follow me at the Chester More on Instagram.
Speaker 1: Go to KLVI dot COMFLIC on the podcast link for
Speaker 1: archives of this program at iHeartRadio. Follow me also higher
Speaker 1: Calling Wildlife on Facebook and talking with Pete Copolilo from
Speaker 1: Working Dogs for Conservation. So we've established you guys are
Speaker 1: using rescue dogs and kind of the mission for what
Speaker 1: you do and what are some of the specific missions.
Speaker 1: I mean, we mentioned finding scat and helping locate populations
Speaker 1: of animals and obscure areas and things like that, but
Speaker 1: I know that right now you guys actually have some
Speaker 1: dog or a dog or two in Texas helping sniff
Speaker 1: out zebra muscles.
Speaker 2: Yep, that's correct. We work very closely with a partner
Speaker 2: named Laura Spate, who's who's wonderful and has done a
Speaker 2: lot of work. As as you know better than I do,
Speaker 2: Texas is right at the edge of the distribution for
Speaker 2: zebra and quaga muscles, and they are they're no fun.
Speaker 2: They are you know, ecologically they're bad and they they
Speaker 2: cause millions of dollars literally millions of dollars damage to
Speaker 2: human infrastructure. And the interesting thing, you know, also scary
Speaker 2: thing about zebra and quagga muscles is that we can
Speaker 2: see them when they encrust. You know, most of us
Speaker 2: have seen the picture.
Speaker 4: Of the pipe that's almost completely plugged by them, So
Speaker 4: that's the adult, the adult individual that they disperse themselves
Speaker 4: through an invisible larval stage.
Speaker 2: At least it's invisible to us, to humans called a villager.
Speaker 2: We can't see it. We can't see it when it's
Speaker 2: in water, we can't see it when it's settled on
Speaker 2: a surface. But we demonstrated that a dog can smell it.
Speaker 2: So so so a number of years ago, working here
Speaker 2: in Montana and in Alberta, we demonstrated that the dogs
Speaker 2: could do this. And what's really cool about it is
Speaker 2: not only are they more sensitive than a human inspector,
Speaker 2: but they're faster. They're much much faster, so a visual
Speaker 2: search of a big say a you know, a catamaran
Speaker 2: or a house boat or something like that. You know,
Speaker 2: it might take an inspector an hour to really check
Speaker 2: that thing thoroughly, and like I said, they would still
Speaker 2: miss the invisible larvae. A dog can do a boat
Speaker 2: like that in a handful of minutes. And so you know,
Speaker 2: when the people are rolling up to the check station
Speaker 2: and there's an inspector between them and their day on
Speaker 2: the water, a lot of times people start to get
Speaker 2: grumpy as there's a big line and you know, come on,
Speaker 2: let's get moving. And the inspectors, you know, understandably so
Speaker 2: they may not be able to inspect every boat, so
Speaker 2: they just start waving them through. But when you've got
Speaker 2: a dog there, number one, they don't pile up because
Speaker 2: it's happening faster. But number two, if people do have
Speaker 2: to wait, they're going to get out of the truck
Speaker 2: and they go, hey, look there's a dog working over there.
Speaker 2: And then you know they're watching. And the folks in
Speaker 2: Alberta did a did a great thing by by creating
Speaker 2: playing cards for them, and so we do that for
Speaker 2: all the dogs now, and Laura's dogs too, and and
Speaker 2: so everybody gets a little playing card you know that says, hey,
Speaker 2: you've been sniffed by Darby or you know, or SEUs
Speaker 2: or or Diesel. And so it's really cool because you know,
Speaker 2: it takes something that would make people grumpy and makes
Speaker 2: it a positive, fun experience for them.
Speaker 1: So if they sniff out a larval zebra muscle, then
Speaker 1: what will the next step be in terms of making
Speaker 1: sure this isn't going to a lake?
Speaker 2: Yeah, the inspector then says, you gotta you've got to
Speaker 2: powerwash your boat before it can before it can go
Speaker 2: in the water. And in different jurisdictions they have different
Speaker 2: practices for it. Sometimes they get what looks like a
Speaker 2: big old zip tie that goes on on the on
Speaker 2: the outboard that says this boat's clean and has been inspected.
Speaker 2: And other times it's just it's just uh, people operating
Speaker 2: on the honor system because stay by state, the regulations
Speaker 2: sort of vary. But the truth is, you know, boaters
Speaker 2: and anglers, they want to do the right thing. Nobody
Speaker 2: wants the zebra and quagga muscles encrusting everything. It's a mess,
Speaker 2: it's terrible. They cut your feet. They cost everybody a
Speaker 2: lot of money. It's we're all aligned on not wanting
Speaker 2: them to invade.
Speaker 1: Yeah, a lot of damage, and it changes the ecosystem
Speaker 1: so much. I mean it clears the water up to
Speaker 1: a level to where a lot more aquatic vegetation, including
Speaker 1: non indigenous vegetation, grows. I've been on a lake in
Speaker 1: New York that was basically had you know, I had
Speaker 1: some vegetation, but it was so thick now that you
Speaker 1: couldn't even fish the lake because of zebra muscle infestigations.
Speaker 1: Just a lot of weird stuff. With these dogs helping
Speaker 1: sniff this out. Now, you talk about it being on
Speaker 1: a boat, being encrustling on a dock or something like that.
Speaker 1: Is it possible to take them in a boat on
Speaker 1: a lake where you think it might have got introduced
Speaker 1: and actually smell them in the water.
Speaker 2: Well, we do do that on shoreline. We do shoreline searches.
Speaker 2: So here in Montana, we had a couple of a
Speaker 2: scare you probably know about environmental DNA. Folks will use
Speaker 2: these what they call fat bags or or you know,
Speaker 2: it's it's like basically a sponge that'll that'll catch fragments
Speaker 2: of DNA, And we had records of there was an
Speaker 2: indication in Tiber Reservoir and Canyon Ferry two reservoirs here
Speaker 2: in Montana that there was there had been muscles there so,
Speaker 2: but nobody had seen muscles. It hadn't been seen on
Speaker 2: a boat. They weren't on recorded on on you know, anywhere.
Speaker 2: So so what we did was used our dogs to
Speaker 2: do shoreline and infrastructure searches, which makes sense, right because
Speaker 2: that's that's where a boat goes in. It's probably gonna
Speaker 2: you know, dump its ballast tank or its bait tank,
Speaker 2: or it's things like that near the shore and near
Speaker 2: the the near the pier and stuff like that. So
Speaker 2: we can use them in that way. People do use
Speaker 2: dogs in boats. It's not our dogs, but it's been
Speaker 2: done for orcas. Putting a boat. There was a rottweiler
Speaker 2: named Tucker who lived in the front of a of
Speaker 2: a of a boat and the and he would by
Speaker 2: going back and forth, help direct that the boat captain
Speaker 2: toward orca scats that would float. They float for a
Speaker 2: time wow before they sink. So it's it's a it's
Speaker 2: a that's a cool collaboration right there to have them
Speaker 2: find that kind of stuff on the water. So, yeah,
Speaker 2: they do all sorts of stuff like that. And then
Speaker 2: you know, if you expand, you guys have in Texas
Speaker 2: a great canine program in Texas Parks and Wildlife Department,
Speaker 2: and some of those dogs are human remains detection dogs.
Speaker 2: And you know the stories you get from from human
Speaker 2: remains dogs finding people who've been underwater for for long
Speaker 2: periods of time, or they're just extraordinary, they just blow
Speaker 2: your mind.
Speaker 1: Well, the thing that blew my mind when I introduced
Speaker 1: when I got to introduce you with Wild Sheep Foundation
Speaker 1: event the Sheep Show was talking with you guys that
Speaker 1: there was actually dogs trained to sniff out brook trout
Speaker 1: in the water.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, that's right, that's right. That that project grew
Speaker 2: out of a conversation that a conservation biology meeting with
Speaker 2: a great fellow named Carter Cruz who works for the
Speaker 2: Turner in Dangerous Species Fund, and he restored native cutthroat
Speaker 2: to a particular watershed on a property owned by Ted Turner,
Speaker 2: and he took a little bit heat for it, but
Speaker 2: he wanted to In order to do that, he had
Speaker 2: to he had to remove all the brook trout and
Speaker 2: he wanted to make sure that they weren't coming back,
Speaker 2: and so you know, normally the conventional way to do
Speaker 2: that is electro fishing, you know, and and I'm sure
Speaker 2: you've seen seen that happen a lot, you know, in
Speaker 2: the water with probes and stunning the fish and all
Speaker 2: of that stuff. And it's slow, it's expensive, you know,
Speaker 2: under some circumstances, it can be a little bit dangerous.
Speaker 2: You know, sometimes they shock the fish too hard and
Speaker 2: you get mortality from it. So he said, what do
Speaker 2: you think you think we could do this? And I said,
Speaker 2: you know, I have no idea. And long story short,
Speaker 2: you know, we went through this progression of starting with
Speaker 2: a fish in a bucket and then and then removing
Speaker 2: the fish and saying can the dog detect that there
Speaker 2: was a fish in this bucket? And then it ended
Speaker 2: up on the flying d with us having fish in
Speaker 2: traps hidden up under the bank and running the dog
Speaker 2: up this little creek and sure enough they were alerting
Speaker 2: where the where the fish were. So so short answer is, yeah,
Speaker 2: you can. You can do that.
Speaker 1: So they're able to actually distinguish a brook trout from
Speaker 1: a cut throat.
Speaker 2: We did a brook trout from rainbow trout. Was our comparison,
Speaker 2: but yes, they can, they can discriminate to species. And
Speaker 2: you know, I always say that's kind of we are saying, Wow,
Speaker 2: they can tell them apart just by their their their scent.
Speaker 2: But you know the truth is, you can tell what
Speaker 2: fish is on the line just by a tiny glance
Speaker 2: when you see it six or eight feet down in
Speaker 2: the water, right and you know, you might know from
Speaker 2: the tug or the flash of the color or whatever.
Speaker 2: And we only use about twelve or sixteen percent of
Speaker 2: our brains for vision, and a dog uses sixty percent
Speaker 2: of its brain for old faction. So you can imagine
Speaker 2: the degree to which they are tuning in to the
Speaker 2: subtleties of that odor. So it makes perfect sense that
Speaker 2: they can they can do it well.
Speaker 1: We come back on More Outdoors on News Talk five
Speaker 1: sixty KLVA talking more Pete Coppolillo with Working Dogs for
Speaker 1: Conservation cane iems are doing incredible things for wildlife out there,
Speaker 1: from stopping wildlife trafficking, busting poachers to working on behalf
Speaker 1: of wild sheep and evasive exotics. And when we come
Speaker 1: back on More out Doors are talk more with Pete
Speaker 1: from Working Dogs from Conservation here on more outdoors on
Speaker 1: news Talk I have sixty KLVI. Welcome back tomorrow outdoors
Speaker 1: on news Talk five sixty klv I talking my favorite topic,
Speaker 1: wildlife conservation with my favorite kind of domestic animal dogs,
Speaker 1: Working Dogs for Conservation. You can learn more about them
Speaker 1: at WD four C dot org. That's WD four C
Speaker 1: dot org. Working Dogs for Conservation. We have the executive director,
Speaker 1: Pete Copolilo on the program. We just heard a mind
Speaker 1: boggling story about dogs able to sniff out. Let's just
Speaker 1: go back to the podcast of the program listen to that.
Speaker 1: The way I got connected with you, Pete was the
Speaker 1: Wild Cheap Foundation, And the biggest problem with wild sheep
Speaker 1: in North America is disease transferred from domestic sheep and
Speaker 1: domestic goats and now looking like odd dad barbarysheep. And
Speaker 1: somehow you guys got connected with the Wild Sheep Foundation.
Speaker 1: So don't just talk a little bit about your work
Speaker 1: that you've done are continuing to do working with Wild Cheap.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well thanks for asking about that. Wild Cheap
Speaker 2: Foundation has been an amazing partner on this project and
Speaker 2: it really came from a conversation with with Kurt Olt
Speaker 2: who said, hey, you know, this was back in I
Speaker 2: think twenty eighteen, and he said, hey, you know watching
Speaker 2: all the press that the cancer dogs, you know, you
Speaker 2: probably have seen some of it. The dogs at pen
Speaker 2: Vet and other other places do amazing things detecting cancer
Speaker 2: in human patients. And he said, do you think it's
Speaker 2: possible for to do this with Wild Sheep? And we said, well,
Speaker 2: let's let's find out. And so, you know, unlike a
Speaker 2: lot of other a lot of other you know, foundations
Speaker 2: or funders, Wild Sheep Foundations has been has been wonderful
Speaker 2: because they're willing to take a risk on this, and
Speaker 2: we said, let's figure this out. And so they provided
Speaker 2: us with some financial support but also with incredible partnerships,
Speaker 2: relationships and access. So a bunch of of the agencies
Speaker 2: here in the West, Tribes and both state and federal
Speaker 2: agencies said, yeah, we're struggling with the same problem here.
Speaker 2: And what what we learned, what I didn't really realize,
Speaker 2: was it's really the diagnostics are hard for for for TV,
Speaker 2: it's a it's a kind of TV. It's Michael Plasma
Speaker 2: O V. Pneumonier or m OV is the bug that's
Speaker 2: relatively benign in you know, not without effects on domestic sheep,
Speaker 2: but it doesn't it doesn't kill them, they don't keel over.
Speaker 2: But when it gets in in wild sheep, you get
Speaker 2: what what what you know? We get whole herd all
Speaker 2: age die offs. They've dropped dead. And so so we said,
Speaker 2: let's find out. So we are in this this two
Speaker 2: year process of working on it and the and the
Speaker 2: quick answer is, yeah, the dogs are really good at this.
Speaker 2: We started with domestic sheep. We demonstrated that they could
Speaker 2: tell based on a breath sample, so just the odor
Speaker 2: captured in a mask, and we did that during the
Speaker 2: pandemic because we USEMOV as a model for COVID to
Speaker 2: see if they could do that with first line healthcare workers.
Speaker 2: But then we moved on to nasal swabs and scat.
Speaker 2: And the nasal swabs are cool because that's you know,
Speaker 2: it's upper respiratory, that's where the infection really is.
Speaker 1: And you know which animal it came from.
Speaker 2: That kind of stuff exactly and we know exactly the
Speaker 2: status of that animal, and that's how we used to
Speaker 2: train them and everything. But what we're really working hard
Speaker 2: at and what I'm quite honestly the most excited about
Speaker 2: is to do it with scat is to figure out
Speaker 2: if an animal just from their scat is infected or not.
Speaker 2: And what's powerful about that is you don't have to
Speaker 2: catch the animal to do it. So as you know,
Speaker 2: and everybody at the Wild Sheep Foundation knows better than
Speaker 2: we do because they've paid for a lot of these captures.
Speaker 2: It's expensive. It's expensive to capture, you know, sheep. It
Speaker 2: can also be dangerous. You know, you get helicopter crashes
Speaker 2: and you know, stuff like that. Cheap, get hurt, all
Speaker 2: of it. But you know they're all pooping all the time, right,
Speaker 2: so we can we can either run a dog through
Speaker 2: the landscape or just collect scat and bring it back
Speaker 2: to a dog and figure out are there infected sheep
Speaker 2: in this in this part of the landscape, and then
Speaker 2: we can make management decisions accordingly. Or I don't say
Speaker 2: we because I run a nonprofit. I'm not in charge
Speaker 2: of anything. I don't have authority or management authority over anything.
Speaker 2: But the managers can do that and that's and that's
Speaker 2: really great because that enables them before you call the helicopter,
Speaker 2: before you've you know, brought everybody in and you know,
Speaker 2: these these capture operations are huge.
Speaker 3: The logistics, oh yeah, they're massive.
Speaker 2: Massive, So it really it's it saves it can help
Speaker 2: help save a lot of money and and uh and
Speaker 2: and really target things to where you know, you've got
Speaker 2: healthy animals, either as a source for new reintroductions, or
Speaker 2: if you've got an infected herd, to be careful about
Speaker 2: augmenting that herd or putting new inm in or doing
Speaker 2: more monitoring whatever. It's it's really a multipurpose tool, depending
Speaker 2: on the context. So we're excited about it.
Speaker 1: You guys have recently done some work with the captures
Speaker 1: in Nebraska and how did how did that go?
Speaker 2: It was amazing, you know. The fearless leader on that
Speaker 2: was Todd Nordene and he he's he's a he's a
Speaker 2: great manager and a great scientist, but also an incredible logistician.
Speaker 2: I mean, getting everybody there, getting the everybody lined up
Speaker 2: ready to handle, you know, and then having to hold
Speaker 2: sheep for some time while while samples get sent away
Speaker 2: because we're you know, we are early days at this,
Speaker 2: and if we're using those captured animal samples, we need
Speaker 2: to have it confirmed via a lab before we use
Speaker 2: that sample to train a dog. So we're still in
Speaker 2: these early days when we're gathering all these things. So
Speaker 2: it's it's an amazing it's an amazing process. And from
Speaker 2: our side, Michelle of Ar is a canine field specialist
Speaker 2: and she's been so enthusiastic about this that this is
Speaker 2: this is becoming her master's thesis is working with the dogs,
Speaker 2: comparing that to other methods of finding out And what's
Speaker 2: nice about a dog is you get an answer immediately,
Speaker 2: and we're working on getting the training so that we
Speaker 2: get them up. We've got accuracies over eighty percent, sometimes
Speaker 2: for certain dogs over ninety percent, but we're going to
Speaker 2: try to get that into the high nineties. You know,
Speaker 2: better than the laboratory diagnostics.
Speaker 1: Wow. And you know, just having been on a capture before,
Speaker 1: the unbelievable amount of manpower, risk expense. Anything that would
Speaker 1: cut down on all of the above would be a
Speaker 1: very big positive because there is a sense of urgency
Speaker 1: in the sheep world. I mean, wild sheep are facing
Speaker 1: some pretty serious situation with disease and things like that.
Speaker 1: So being able to partner with working dogs for conservation,
Speaker 1: I can totally see how the Wild Cheap Foundation and
Speaker 1: you know, also other chapters and affiliates out there, tribes,
Speaker 1: state and regional agencies can benefit from this.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's amazing. I mean I didn't know that.
Speaker 2: I didn't know the story. Everybody depends on Wattle, the
Speaker 2: Washington Animal Disease Lab and Disease Diagnostic Lab two d's,
Speaker 2: and they you know, they do fabulous work, but they're constrained.
Speaker 2: You know, you have to get the samples there and
Speaker 2: then they've got to run up and amplify the DNA
Speaker 2: and do all that. So what happens because nobody wants
Speaker 2: to move an infected sheep and go infect a whole
Speaker 2: new landscape and a whole new population or anything like that.
Speaker 2: So what happens is these animals get captured and then
Speaker 2: as soon as you've got one animal per stock trailer,
Speaker 2: you stop and you wait, and the helicopters on the
Speaker 2: ground and everybody's sitting there while the samples go off
Speaker 2: to Washington and they get analyzed and then they come back.
Speaker 2: So you know, captures don't happen on Wednesday, Thursday, Friday
Speaker 2: because there's not time to mail it before the weekend
Speaker 2: back you know, fed exit back and forth. So we thought, wow,
Speaker 2: this is this is a big inefficiency. This is an
Speaker 2: opportunity for dogs to help really streamline that that process.
Speaker 2: And you know, new new understanding about the epidemiology of
Speaker 2: MV and they're doing some amazing work in Hell's Canyon
Speaker 2: and in British Columbia and on on detecting and how
Speaker 2: these things roll through herds and how they get maintained
Speaker 2: in herds and can undermine lambing. You know, I don't
Speaker 2: know if you've had the folks who did the transmission
Speaker 2: film on.
Speaker 3: But yeah, yeah, so everybody knows that story that you know,
Speaker 3: we thought that they'd all die and then you start
Speaker 3: to clean slate, but it turns out you've got these
Speaker 3: chronic shutters and so we need to figure out who
Speaker 3: those chronic shutters are.
Speaker 2: So you know, I'm really hopeful. It's it's kind of
Speaker 2: a new day for wild sheep. And and you know,
Speaker 2: Grey Thornton and and Kevin Hurley and and Kurt Alt
Speaker 2: they deserve all the credit because they were really courageous.
Speaker 2: They said, hey, let's go for this. We're going to
Speaker 2: do this and do it right, and they're sticking by
Speaker 2: it and figuring out all these things and it's cool,
Speaker 2: it's really exciting to see.
Speaker 1: If you like more information about Working Dogs for Conservation,
Speaker 1: maybe it'd helped them, go to WD four C dot org.
Speaker 1: That's WD FOURC dot org. And if you like to
Speaker 1: get involved in helping wild cheap and wild cheap conservation
Speaker 1: from Western Texas into Canada, literally around the world, you
Speaker 1: can learn more at the Wild Sheep Foundation's website. That's
Speaker 1: Wildshepfoundation dot org. Wildsheepfoundation dot org. Both of these organizations
Speaker 1: doing cutting edge research and are very open about all
Speaker 1: their work they're doing, and they give us lots of
Speaker 1: great interviews here on More Outdoors. We'll come back. We'll
Speaker 1: wrap up our conversation with Pete Copolilo from Working Dogs
Speaker 1: for Conservation, an incredibly fascinating topic. Welcome back to More
Speaker 1: Outdoors on News Talk five sixty klv I. This is
Speaker 1: Chester Moore talking with Pete Kopolilo. He's the executive director
Speaker 1: for Working Dogs for Conservation. Just did a segment about
Speaker 1: the work they're doing with the Wild Cheap Foundation, working
Speaker 1: to find disease detection and which is a huge, huge
Speaker 1: thing in the wild cheap conservation. We've talked about that
Speaker 1: with Grey Thornton and others on the program. Before, and
Speaker 1: we're gonna talk more about what they're doing here in
Speaker 1: terms of like maybe anti poaching work with dogs, which
Speaker 1: you know you think about security dogs, bomb sniffing dogs, Pete,
Speaker 1: I know you guys have done work in the realm
Speaker 1: of wildlife trafficking. Let's talk a little bit about that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, well, thank you for asking about that. Yeah,
Speaker 2: it's a everybody knows what a drug dog is like
Speaker 2: or a bomb dog because we've seen him work out
Speaker 2: in public, and anti trafficking dogs do very similar work,
Speaker 2: you know that can we were our initial foray into
Speaker 2: that world was actually helping the rangers on the ground
Speaker 2: and Zambia find wire snares and and the dogs proved
Speaker 2: to do that in about a quarter of the time
Speaker 2: that the handlers did, and so that was very useful.
Speaker 2: But that was also at the time when we had
Speaker 2: the global you know, global trafficking of lots of species
Speaker 2: of wildlife, but particularly elephants and rhinos. So we trained
Speaker 2: on ivory, rhino horn and trafficked animal products and and
Speaker 2: you know that that kind of work is really important,
Speaker 2: it's fundamental. It happens just like trafficking drugs or or
Speaker 2: or you know, guns, or ammunition or things like that.
Speaker 2: But at the same time we also started training them
Speaker 2: on guns and ammunition so that we could intervene and
Speaker 2: if someone was trying to smuggle guns into a protected
Speaker 2: area or you know, or or ammunition or something like that,
Speaker 2: we could intervene before animal gets killed. And what's really
Speaker 2: exciting is nowadays we've got two new technologies that help
Speaker 2: us really penetrate farther in and intervene before animals get killed.
Speaker 2: The artificial intelligence cameras can identify when of humans in
Speaker 2: the image. And as you probably know, it's illegal to
Speaker 2: enter protected areas on foot in Africa, so if somebody
Speaker 2: crosses into the protected area legally, we can scramble a
Speaker 2: tracking dog and get them on there before they kill something.
Speaker 2: So that's really really exciting. And then the other one
Speaker 2: is is working on using air evacuated vacuumed out from
Speaker 2: a container shipping container and passing it through a filter
Speaker 2: and then presenting those filters to the dog and seeing
Speaker 2: if there's contraband while life contraband inside, and so that
Speaker 2: helps us. You know, a lot of stuff gets trafficked
Speaker 2: in containers and very few containers get searched, so we're
Speaker 2: really excited to be make some inroads on anti poaching
Speaker 2: and ending while ife crime.
Speaker 1: Yeah, you know, this is such a multifaceted issue, and
Speaker 1: something that's really concerning me is, you know, the nation
Speaker 1: of India has don our really good job on stemming
Speaker 1: the tide of tiger poaching there, and other Asian nations
Speaker 1: have done pretty good as well. So the some of
Speaker 1: the Asian markets that are dictating that they have tiger
Speaker 1: parts are now shifting and they're going in es, Central
Speaker 1: and South America after jaguars. And in Bolivia alone there
Speaker 1: was one particular bus that had dozens of jaguars worth
Speaker 1: the claws and they're actually openly advertising for this. So
Speaker 1: is this a situation also as well where you could
Speaker 1: like train be it like a customs place and train
Speaker 1: on finding like cat parts or anything like that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, yeah, it's I mean, it is as diverse as
Speaker 2: you can imagine. A retired CIA agent who helps us
Speaker 2: with some of our work one time said, if you
Speaker 2: can think of it, you can bet that a trafficker
Speaker 2: has tried it and probably gone two or three steps further. Right.
Speaker 2: You know, when I started working in Africa back in
Speaker 2: like in the nineties. You know, rhino horn was just
Speaker 2: considered an aphrodisiac, and now people take it for blood pressure,
Speaker 2: they with their when they're consuming alcohol. They think it
Speaker 2: increases your alcohol tolerance. They take it for for you know,
Speaker 2: all sorts of other things like so the the uses
Speaker 2: and the number of species and access to it. With
Speaker 2: global trade, there's so much more stuff moving around the
Speaker 2: world and so the opportunity to ship wildlife products with
Speaker 2: it has just increased exponentially. So this is a this
Speaker 2: is a challenge we're going to be working with for
Speaker 2: a very long time.
Speaker 1: Yeah, very interesting stuff. And you know that the global
Speaker 1: nature of the trade, and you know, it's almost like
Speaker 1: people are actually, I know, this is for a fact,
Speaker 1: this is happening even on a level of like exotic
Speaker 1: pet theft in Texas. They're putting into orders you know,
Speaker 1: like I want you know, this animal or whatever and
Speaker 1: someone with you know, there's the money for it. There'll
Speaker 1: be someone out there, you know after that. So it's
Speaker 1: really cool to see that you guys and different people
Speaker 1: using working dogs are able to uh, you know, be
Speaker 1: a tool in the hands of not only like you know,
Speaker 1: like the wild Sheet Foundation for Disease detection, but also
Speaker 1: law enforcement in the wildlife realm for stopping some of
Speaker 1: the poaching, because while poaching in America is bad in
Speaker 1: certain areas, for the most part, it's not contributing to
Speaker 1: species extinction. Overseas, it's a major problem in terms of
Speaker 1: being able to go because you've got groups like Boca
Speaker 1: Haram and different terror groups even selling these parts because
Speaker 1: of the money to help fund terror operations. So it's
Speaker 1: a huge network. And I salute you guys for being
Speaker 1: able to find ways to help curb that.
Speaker 2: Yeah, well, thank you. And you know, a lot of
Speaker 2: a lot of stuff gets trafficked out of We used
Speaker 2: to think that, you know, the US was just a
Speaker 2: destination country. We would buy these products from overseas, but
Speaker 2: now our turtles are getting traffic to China. They're they're
Speaker 2: valuable as pets, and so the rarer it becomes, the
Speaker 2: more valuable it is. And so maybe just a quick
Speaker 2: shout out to our we we helped found something called
Speaker 2: the Conservation Canine Officers Association. Those are nine game wardens
Speaker 2: I think it's thirty two different states, a number of tribes,
Speaker 2: and then two Canadian provinces now and and the President
Speaker 2: of the of the association is right there in Texas.
Speaker 2: His name's Royce Hilson. He's a handler and has great dogs,
Speaker 2: and so you should reach out to him and have
Speaker 2: him on because there's a lot going on in that
Speaker 2: in that realm.
Speaker 1: Yeah, we'll definitely make that happen because we support all
Speaker 1: of this awesome work all of you are doing. It's
Speaker 1: all about conservation. We can throw in dogs even cooler,
Speaker 1: you know. So once again, Pete, if someone wants to
Speaker 1: connect with Working Dogs for Conservation, how to do that?
Speaker 2: Oh, thank you, thanks for asking. We're on the web
Speaker 2: at w D four C. That's the number four w
Speaker 2: D four C dot org and we do mostly social
Speaker 2: on Instagram and Facebook at just Working Dogs for Conservation
Speaker 2: all spelled out.
Speaker 1: Yeah, well, it's great work. You guys are awesome and
Speaker 1: love to have you back on in the future. Working
Speaker 1: Dogs for Conservations something that's really touched my heart. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's amazing to see that these dogs, most of them
Speaker 1: that are rescue dogs of all kinds, of mixed breeds
Speaker 1: and everything else that are out there literally saving wildlife
Speaker 1: all across many landscapes and doing great work to stop
Speaker 1: the spread of invasive exotics right here in the great
Speaker 1: state of Texas. So it's just really neat to be
Speaker 1: able to see how people are using great innovations with
Speaker 1: technology to help wildlife. We've had even people doing cloning work,
Speaker 1: like with the blackfooted ferret on the program. But then
Speaker 1: you go all the way back the other direction to
Speaker 1: you know, this incredible natural created thing, the dog. I mean,
Speaker 1: of course man's had a lot of role in breeding
Speaker 1: and things like that, and you know, honing the dogs
Speaker 1: certain abilities, but I mean, this isn't some kind of tech.
Speaker 1: This is a dog. It's a great way to use it.
Speaker 1: You heard Pete. He said he doesn't think we've even
Speaker 1: got close to tapping into what dogs can do. So
Speaker 1: very excited to see that work with working dogs for conservation.
Speaker 1: You know, we're on the cusp of hunting season and
Speaker 1: a lot of guys are using Labradors and Golden Retrievers
Speaker 1: and chesapeaks and short hairs and lots of dogs out
Speaker 1: in the field doing everything from retrieving dogs to you know,
Speaker 1: trailing wounded animals. Dogs really are man's best friend. I
Speaker 1: can't imagine my life without dogs, and I've had dogs
Speaker 1: my entire life. I will always have dogs. They're a
Speaker 1: special part of my life. And you know, they're big
Speaker 1: babies at our house. You know, they're great guard dog
Speaker 1: they're also big babies. We use them for our outreach.
Speaker 1: It's amazing to see the smile that a dog puts
Speaker 1: on kids face. It's a really really special thing. And
Speaker 1: it's really cool to see man's best friend becoming wildlife's
Speaker 1: best friend in certain situations. And you know, one of
Speaker 1: the big problems with wild sheep is contact with domestic
Speaker 1: sheep because of disease. We've talked about that in the show.
Speaker 1: Well think about that. We've had sheep dogs for years,
Speaker 1: right protecting sheep. Now we have dogs protecting wild sheep
Speaker 1: like from domestic contact. Really amazing stuff, and folks, I
Speaker 1: appreciate you. Listening to More Outdoors every Friday here from
Speaker 1: six to seven pm Central Standard Time on news Talk
Speaker 1: five to sixty KLVI. If you miss the whole program,
Speaker 1: listen to the archive on iHeartRadio. Go our KLVI Dot
Speaker 1: Conflict on the podcast link you'll see the archives of
Speaker 1: the program. Follow me at the Chestermorn Instagram, Higher Calling
Speaker 1: Dot at my blog, Higher Calling Wildlife on Facebook. God
Speaker 1: bless and have a Great Outdoors Weekend