They’re cute, they’re clever, and they’re on a mission to save one of Australia’s most mysterious creatures, from a paddleboard.
At Victoria’s Healesville Sanctuary, detection dogs like Moss the yellow Labrador and Kip the tan Kelpie are trading fetch for conservation, helping researchers locate endangered platypuses in the wild, all without ever disturbing a single one.
“Because of our dogs’ incredible sense of smell, we’re able to have a better understanding of how these platypus are living and using their environment,” said Dr. La Toya Jamieson, Healesville’s wildlife detection dog officer.
The elusive platypus, known for its duck bill, underwater lifestyle, and cryptic habits, is notoriously hard to study. “They spend their time underwater and underground and they’re also nocturnal, so they’re quite challenging just to observe, let alone study,” said Healesville platypus specialist Jessica Thomas. In fact, no researcher has ever seen one lay an egg.
Enter the dogs. Wearing safety vests and perched on paddleboards, these furry biologists-in-training are trained to sniff out platypus burrows, even when human researchers can’t access them due to high rainfall or rough terrain.
“The dogs are able to do it safely, effectively and rather quickly without us ever needing to see a platypus or handle a platypus,” Jamieson explained. “So it’s a lot less stressful for the platypus in those moments.”
Keeping them from doing zoomies on the paddleboard? That’s another challenge. “The only hard part was keeping them calm,” Thomas joked.
To make it all work, the pups undergo extensive training to build core strength and learn to associate the smell of platypus with a reward. “We pair the smell of the platypus with a reward, be that a ball or some food,” said Dr. Nick Rutter. “When they find the platypus, they get a reward.”
The effort is paying off. “What’s been really helpful is they’ve been able to pinpoint the entrance to their burrows,” Rutter shared. “So we can better understand how they’re using that environment and how we can better conserve them in that space.”
Soon, the new Australian Platypus Conservation Center will open at Healesville Sanctuary, designed to heal sick or injured platypuses and return them safely to the wild. And guess who’s helping gather the info to make it feel just like home?
“Our detection dogs provide us an opportunity to do that,” Jamieson said. “Platypus is such a unique species, and it’s so critical that we protect not only them, but also their environment.”
And these four-legged conservationists aren’t stopping at platypuses. Moss, Kip, and their teammates Daisy, Sugar, and Finn are sniffing out everything from endangered frogs to the Victorian Grassland Earless Dragon.
“[Finn] might be one of the new recruits onto our Platypus Detection Project in the future,” Rutter teased. “Watch this space; Finn might be on a paddleboard in the not too distant future.”
As for the dogs? They’re loving it. “It is a lot of fun getting the dogs out on the paddleboards,” Jamieson admitted. “And it’s beautiful to see that they enjoy it just as much as we do.”
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