Puppies, Poo, and Moose Tracks

  • Aimee Hurt, with the group Working Dogs for Conservation (Photo by Brian Mann)

Researchers and environmentalists are
experimenting with a new method for collecting
biological samples in the wild. They’re using
trained tracking dogs to sniff out everything
from rare plants to moose pellets. Brian Mann
joined the hunt in New York’s Adirondack Mountains:

Transcript

Researchers and environmentalists are
experimenting with a new method for collecting
biological samples in the wild. They’re using
trained tracking dogs to sniff out everything
from rare plants to moose pellets. Brian Mann
joined the hunt in New York’s Adirondack Mountains:

It’s early, the sun still tangled in the alder trees, when we set off
on foot down a
narrow logging road.

(sound of walking down the road)

Soon, Heidi Kretser with the Wildlife Conservation Society finds the
first evidence that
we’re not alone.

“These are moose tracks.”

New York’s moose population has surged in recent years, to move than
500 animals.
Researchers have been tracking moose using airplanes and radio collars.

But today, were tagging along behind a cheerful black lab mix named
Wicket.

(sound of dog’s collar jingling)

Wicket flashes back and forth across the trail, snuffling eagerly.
She wears a bright
red vest and that tinkling bell is designed to keep her from actually
meeting a moose
head-on.

Her owner and handler, Aimee Hurt, says using dogs to find biological
samples – everything from plants to rare birds – isn’t new.

“I think if you talk to a lot of biologists who’ve been out
in the field for
decades, ‘Oh yeah, my dog figured out that we were looking for —
whatever.’ And they
started honing in on it and helping out. So I really think that dog’s
have been
biologists’ partners for a long time.”

Hurt’s organization – Working Dogs for Conservation, based in Montana
– took the idea
one step further, training dogs in much the same way that police train
K-9 units.

Wicket knows how to find six different kinds of scat, including
mountain lion, grizzly
bear – and now moose

“She is an air-scent dog, which means there’s no tracking
involved — she’s
just sniffing the air for a whiff of scat.”

Heidi Kretser, with the Wildlife Conservation Society, says moose
droppings can tell a
lot about why these Clydesdale-sized animals are returning to New York, what they’re
eating, and how they’ll reshape this forest if their numbers keep
growing.

“By understanding the diet, we’ll get a better sense of what
habitats they
might impact long-term, since they eat 40 pounds of vegetation a day.”

(sound of birds and footsteps)

Wicket leads the team on long ramble through the radiant lime green
forest, and down
across a burbling creek.

(sound of creek)

We see moose sign everywhere – mule-sized tracks, maple trees
stripped of bark. And
then Wicket sniffs out her first pile of droppings.

“Whoopee, good girl. Very nice!”

More poop means better data. So the pellets are trucked away in a
plastic bag for the
trip back to the lab.

For Wicket, the reward is a few minutes of joyous play with a squishy
rubber ball.

(sound of squeezing toy)

“Let’s get to work!” (bell jangling)

Then the team is off again, with Wicket snuffling happily through the
trees. Biologists
hope to use the same method to study other wildlife – from grizzlies
to mountain lions.

For The Environment Report, I’m Brian Mann.

Related Links

States Seek to Ban Internet Hunting

  • Live-shot.com is a website providing a "Real Time, Online, Hunting and Shooting Experience." Many states are proposing legislation to ban web hunting, saying that it's unsportsmanlike.

A new kind of hunting has already been outlawed in at least one state… and could be in others soon. Hunters, lawmakers, and animal rights activists say the practice is inhumane. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Christina Shockley
reports:

Transcript

A new kind of hunting has already been outlawed in at least one state… and could be in others soon. Hunters, lawmakers, and animal rights activists say it’s inhumane. The Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Christina Shockley reports:


John Lockwood has created the web site “live shot dot com.” For a fee, users can control a gun from their computer to shoot animals on his Texas ranch. Critics say it doesn’t allow for a fair hunt.


But Lockwood says it closely resembles an “in-person” hunt because someone is on-site. He says that person sits in a blind with the user-operated gun and acts as the user’s guide.


“The animal still has the same chance of detecting you, you know the human scents as he would in any hunting situation. It’s not like all that’s out there is this inanimate object that’s aiming and shooting. It’s just like if somebody was there hunting.”


Lockwood says he created the site to help people who couldn’t get out to hunt, like the disabled. He says the online hunters must have a valid Texas hunting license.


But lawmakers in several states have introduced legislation to ban the practice.


For the GLRC, I’m Christina Shockley.

Related Links

The Dawn of Smell-O-Vision

In the animal kingdom, a sense of smell is a useful tool. We can tell whether our food is fresh, our clothes are clean… and we might even choose a mate by their scent. Soon, marketers may try to attract your nose to their products. But like too much noise, too many smells may be a turn-off. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Tom Dunkel doesn’t mind that he’ll miss out on this new kind of pollution:

Transcript

In the animal kingdom, a sense of smell is a useful tool. We can tell whether our food is fresh, our clothes are clean… and we might even choose a mate by their scent. Soon, marketers may try to attract your nose to their products. But like too much noise, too many smells may be a turn-off. Great Lakes Radio Consortium commentator Tom Dunkel doesn’t mind that he’ll miss out on this new kind of pollution.


The nose knows more than we think it does. Studies have shown humans secrete the same chemical scents called “pheromones” that trigger things like aggression and mating in the animal kingdom. What does that mean? Well, it means that by mixing the smells of lavender and pumpkin pie, researchers in Chicago were able to sexually arouse a test group of men… a test group of, apparently, very lonely, embarrassed men. Its private industry’s job is to try and cash in on scientific discoveries. Which explains why a patent has been issued for a little device that attaches to a TV, computer, or stereo. The sole purpose of this little gizmo is to generate odors that enhance what we see and hear on our TVs, computers, and stereos. Yes…. It’s the Dawn of Smell-o-Vision! And it’s only a matter of time until it produces a new, annoying form of environmental pollution.


Someday soon grocers will be spritzing supermarket aisles with chocolate-based fumes…. fumes that fill shoppers with a heroin-like craving for Coco Puffs. Airline industry scientists will discover that the combined smell of fruitcake and varnish make passengers actually want to stand in line for hours at ticket counters. We’ll be begging for flight delays. Some future presidential candidate will get catapulted into office by winning the scratch-n’-sniff-campaign-button vote.


Fortunately, I’m going to miss out on this brave, new, environmentally manipulated world. I’m going to miss out because I’m one of about 3 million Americans who have no sense of smell. People like you…. normal people…. enjoy a symphony of 10,000 different odors. My world of smell is a one-note song: ammonia. Eye-watering, sinus-scorching ammonia…the nasal equivalent of having ears that can only hear blood-curdling screams. As handicaps go, I admit I have a minor one. Ragged men don’t stand on street corners mumbling, “Hey, buddy, can you spare a dollar for a guy who’s never smelled fresh-baked bread?” But being born without a sense of smell has very practical, very anxiety producing implications. I have left chicken pot pies baking in the oven all night long…. cooked them no, incinerated them – until a neighbor stopped by to ask if my kitchen was on fire. Likewise, I can’t tell if I’ve worn a suit two times or 20 times. Imagine sitting in a business meeting, brimming over with earth-shattering, big ideas…but convinced nobody will listen to those Big Ideas because you smell like a high school gym locker.


I long ago accepted the fact that my nose can’t distinguish a rose from road kill. But after all these years – not being able to smell has suddenly developed a bright side: No company is going to manipulate my environment. I am totally immune to Smell-o-Vision. Better yet: No matter what those wacky, test-group scientists do, I will never, ever, get sexually aroused by a piece of pumpkin pie.

Creating Fragrant Flowers

When was the last time you got a bouquet of flowers that had a
fragrant smell? While there’s no shortage of beautiful looking flowers
for
sale, many have little if any scent anymore. As the Great Lakes Radio
Consortium’s Tamar Charney reports it’s a problem one scientist has
gotten a whiff of:

Transcript

When was the last time you got a bouquet of flowers that had a fragrant smell? While there’s no shortage of beautiful looking flowers for sale, many have little, if any, scent anymore. Ast he Great Lakes Radio Consortium’s Tamar Charney reports, it’s a problem one scientist has gotten a whiff of:


Flowers have lost their smell as flower growers have bred them to be big and brightly colored. Eran Pichersky is a biologist at the University of Michigan. He studies the smell of flowers. Pichersky is focusing his genetics research on whether it’s possible to bioengineer a flower’s scent.


“We actually have some collaboration with biotech companies who are trying to use some of the genes and enzymes we’ve isolated to put them back into plants so that the plant makes more scent, or even new scent that they didn’t make before.”


But it’s not florists who are interested in this work, it’s farmers. Pichersky’s research means it might be possible to alter the smell of flowers in ways that entice bees to visit crops more often, or even attract other insects to do the pollination work. That increase in pollination could mean an increase in crop yields.


For the Great Lakes Radio Consortium, I’m Tamar Charney.