dogs to protect bandicoots

The Age newspaper recently had an article about a program hoping to train Maremmas to keep predators away from eastern barred bandicoots. These bandicoots are extinct in the wild, and previous release programs have been disappointing, because foxes and cats had killed many of the native animals when they were restored to their natural habitats after being bred in zoos.

Apparently the maremma pups will initially sleep with bandicoot bedding. The photo accompanying the article shows a dog with a toy bandicoot. Cute!

An interesting aspect of the program is that the dogs need to learn which animals are 'friends' - e.g. kangaroos - as well as which ones are a danger to their proteges.

Sounds like a great idea. Donations can be made here, if you wish to help out.

I've blogged in the past about dogs helping to conserve the spotted quoll and hunting enemies of penguins.

Aren't dogs wonderful?

in Australia dogs help conserve an endangered species

Great article today in The Age newspaper about  dogs in our national parks.

Usually we hear only complaints about dogs and native animals, and I do understand that we can't take dogs into areas where we need to protect native creatures.

But this is a video with a difference. An exciting discovery has been made, a camera shot of a spotted quoll in a place where they have not been seen in recent times.  So sniffer dogs have been brought in to try to locate scat (poo) of spotted tiger quolls.

I really enjoyed the film, but unfortunately, on this occasion the dogs did not find any quoll scat.



You might want to read more about the quoll conservation program in Cape Otway, which is where the highly trained sniffer dogs come from.

Reading about these dogs reminds me of the hunting dogs who were trained to kill rabbits but ignore grey-headed albatross.

Aren't dogs amazing?