Opportunities to Use Detector Dog Programmes to Detect Wildlife Contraband – Results of an Expert Workshop on Wildlife Detector Dogs
By Birgit Felgentreu, Independent Consultant to TRAFFIC, and Volker Homes, WWF-Germany and TRAFFIC Germany-Europe

The European Union (EU) is one of the biggest markets in the world for wildlife and its products. It is a particularly important destination for live reptiles, birds and specimens from a range of other species in trade. Many of these species are threatened as a result of over-exploitation and trade.

This demand for wildlife, including a high level of illegal trade, demonstrates that there is a need for increased enforcement of international and national wildlife trade laws and regulations. However, the resources available to many enforcement authorities are limited. The ability of trained dogs to detect concealed products, such as narcotics explosives and cash money, is already well known. However, to date dogs rarely have been used to detect concealed wildlife and wildlife products in trade.

TRAFFIC, the wildlife trade monitoring network of WWF and IUCN - The World Conservation Union, believes that the use of detector dogs can be a valuable asset in combating illegal trade in wildlife. In 1997, TRAFFIC launched a report, The Feasibility of Using Canines to Detect Wildlife Contraband by Rob Parry-Jones. This report was followed by a Master’s thesis, Enforcement of CITES in Germany: Opportunities to Use Wildlife Detector Dog Programmes (in German language) by the first author, in 2004. The project was facilitated by WWF Germany and TRAFFIC Europe. Both reports compiled information on existing wildlife detector dog programmes and provided recommendations for their use and implementation. Subsequent contacts with the Saxon Regional Conservation Foundation (Germany) resulted in successful co-operation to organise the International Expert Workshop on Wildlife Detector Dogs, held from 2-5 March 2006, in Bad Schandau, Germany. This workshop aimed at sharing experience and knowledge on wildlife detector dog programmes among countries interested in this subject, particularly in Europe.

During the workshop, representatives of detector dog training programmes from 13 countries, the Secretariat of CITES (Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora), the World Customs Organization (WCO), TRAFFIC, WWF and Animals Asia Foundation, discussed the use of wildlife detector dogs, training methods and the possibilities of implementing such programmes to strengthen efforts to combat the illegal trade in endangered wildlife. Dog trainers, experienced in training dogs to detect live animals, shared their knowledge about training methods and provided presentations on wildlife detector dog programmes. The CITES Secretariat provided information on the scope of international legal and illegal wildlife trade, the main species and specimens in trade, trade routes, and smuggling techniques. In this context, TRAFFIC presented the the recently established law enforcement online-database EU-TWIX, facilitating the exchange and centralisation of such crucial information. The following countries were represented: Australia, Austria, Belgium, the Czech Republic, Germany, Hungary, Italy, the Netherlands, Poland, Slovakia, Switzerland, the UK, and the USA .

Conclusions

In general, it is possible to train detector dogs to discover wildlife and wildlife products. Detector dogs can be trained specifically for groups of species and can be trained to extrapolate from the smell of species within a group. For example, if a dog is trained on a limited number of live tortoise species, it can be encouraged to generalise the smell to also detect other tortoise species that the dog had not been trained on. Depending on enforcement needs, dogs can either be trained to find a variety of species or to search for very specific species or products. Different detector dog programmes use different methods and techniques to train wildlife detector dogs, however, these differing approaches surprisingly achieve similar results. There are various ways to obtain scent material for training of the dogs, for example by taking fresh parts of an animal (e.g. skin or feathers) or by using the scent of other materials, such as a towel that has been placed into a cage containing the “target” animal species. When using live “target” animals during training, an expert animal handler who can take care of animal welfare aspects is needed.

The participants concluded that detector dogs can be more efficient and more effective than many techniques in detecting wildlife contraband, including X-ray machines and the screening of luggage, courier and postal sendings by humans. Detector dog programmes can help to save costs, are attractive to potential funding sources and are excellent for raising public awareness. A wildlife detector dog programme also has very high potential for helping to reduce the smuggling of species carrying diseases hazardous to wildlife, livestock and humans, such as Asian bird flu, SARS, Foot and mouth disease and others.

For further information and references, please contact: Birgit Felgentreu, Independent Consultant to TRAFFIC, Dipl.-Biol., MEng Environmental Science, email: bfelgen at web.de; Volker Homes, WWF Germany and TRAFFIC Europe-Germany; or Rebstoecker Strasse 55, D-60326 Frankfurt, Germany, ph: +49 69 79144-183, fax: +49 69 617221, email: homes at wwf.de, http://www.traffic.org.