Poo-sniffing dogs have become a key weapon in the fight to protect Australia's endangered native animals from feral pests.
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The conservation canines have been trained to sniff out friend and foe alike in a bid to understand the latter's diet and geographic spread in two states.
Following the horrific 2019 Black Summer fires, East Gippsland Landcare Network has been using the detection dogs to locate fox scat in Victoria's east.
With native fauna left highly vulnerable to vulpine predation, conservation teams have been working to understand how many animals comprise the local fox population, what they eat and where they roam.
Trained dogs brought over from Phillip Island have been crucial in providing answers and are able to do so much quicker than human volunteers.
"What would have taken a week and a half with three or four volunteers only took a day and a half with the dogs," project manager Matt Stephenson said.
The dogs had previously been used for fox control to protect the famous Little Penguins on Phillip Island and so knew the scent they were looking for before they arrived.
English springer spaniels were chosen to sniff out the waste as they naturally work in a fixed pattern from side to side in front of the handler.
Once collected, the droppings proved the foxes ate everything from small lizards and amphibians, cattle and sheep carcasses, and the odd lamb.
Mr Stephenson says the information and an understanding of fox numbers and range, all derived from the scat, will be used to frame control measures.
Meanwhile, sniffer dogs on Queensland's Sunshine Coast will soon be trialled in finding endangered greater gliders, which are notoriously difficult to locate using traditional nocturnal spotlighting methods.
Noosa and district project manager Rachel Lyons says the vulnerable marsupials typically reside in tree canopy up to 50 metres from the ground.
"From the research we have seen, only four to seven per cent of gliders are seen by people undertaking standard visual surveys," she said.
The conservation canines will be used to locate glider scat in the national park and on private land where they are thought to be found.
A team of 15 volunteers has been trained to work on the project.
Noosa glider numbers are crucial to the species' survival, so land managers need to be able to focus on protecting habitat, managing pests and installing nest boxes for the animals.
"We'll test the dogs to see if they locate glider scat and test against our normal survey technique to see if they correlate," Ms Lyons said.
Both the Gippsland and Noosa projects are federally funded through Landcare.
Australian Associated Press
