Conservation K-9s Winnie, Hilo and Jane – Credit: Province of Alberta
Invasive species of Asian mussels have met their match in Alberta’s riverine sniffer dogs.
These K9 conservationists have been employed by the provincial government for over a decade to help catch zebra and golden mussels from colonizing the rivers and lakes of Alberta.
Hilo, Jane, and Winnie, 2 black labs and a black-lab cross, are part of the paws-on-the-ground response at boat inspection stations across the province. It’s now Alberta law that any watercraft must stop at an inspection station whether they are coming or going, and these patrol pooches are trained to smell the odor of developing mussel larvae which can be so small as to be detectable only by the faint feeling like sandpaper on the sides of boats or docks.
“The dogs are really complementing that human inspection and giving us kind of a better idea about what could be on that boat,” said Cindy Sawchuk, the leader for the province’s Aquatic Invasive Species Operations and Conservation Canine Program.
Sawchuk told the Canadian Press that golden mussels recently established themselves in California, posing another potential point of invasion through BC to the west.
“These mussels really like to hide in damp, dark places (and) a lot of them are hard to see,” said Sawchuk.
The mussels are filter feeders native to Southeast Asia. Their effect in Canada is outcompeting other bottom-dweller or filter-feeding fish that rely on the same food source.
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Dogs are rewarded with special toys for every mussel patch they find. It’s a very enriching line of work for the animals, who receive a spark of dopamine while looking for the mussels.
While a fun activity for the dogs—it’s deadly serious for people like Sawchuck and her colleagues. In similar provinces, a mussel infestation might cost $75 million a year to manage and be virtually un-uprootable.
In addition to staffing the inspection stations, the dogs are also being trained to scour shorelines for signs of the mussels, as seen in the video below…
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