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16 July 2010: Wagtail director's work with the Endangered Wildlife Trust in South Africa a success
Director of Wagtail UK Louise Wilson, visited the South Africa based charity the Endangered Wildlife Trust (EWT) last month to assist in developing detection dogs to detect cheetah scats to assist in the monitoring and research of the endangered species.
This method of tracking scats will potentially give researchers a much fuller picture of what is going on with the cheetah population, finding out how many there are, their state of health and their dietary preferences, all without seeing a single spot. Current methods used such as darting procedures can be very risky due to the invasive nature of the methods and the potential of the cheetahs becoming very stressed. The development of detection dogs trained to detect wildlife scents could revolutionise wildlife research methods.
The visit was Louise's second to South Africa with a wildlife organisation. Louise worked with the EWT providing advice and training for the search dogs.
The sniffer dog unit at the EWT is in its early stages, with the facilities still under construction, so on Louise’s visit she helped Rox erect temporary kennels and a large tent for training and she started schooling two dogs, Minkie, a daschund, and Gala, a Malinois or Belgian Shepherd. Detection dogs are believed to have the potential to be trained to not only detect cheetahs but also another rare species, the blue swallow.
The visit was also publicisied in several media publications. The articles can be seen below.