Spotted lanternflies have been making headlines since they were first sighted in the U.S. over a decade ago. The colorful, invasive bugs are a double whammy for fruit trees and other key crops, feeding on sap and leaving sugary excrement that attracts dangerous pathogens and fungi. But the costly insects may have met their match with an unlikely rival: your dog.
Dogs have long been professionally trained to help detect invasive species for conservation efforts. What sets a new study, published July 16 in the journal PeerJ Life & Environment, apart is that these are not professionally trained dogs. They are the canine equivalent of citizen scientists, and they were still able to effectively find spotted lanternfly eggs.
“It was a proof-of-concept study to ask the question: Can we have citizen scientists and their very cool, everyday companion doggos go out and support the effort of conservation work in their home areas?” says lead study author Sally Dickinson, an applied animal behaviorist and search-and-rescue dog handler. “It’s enrichment for their dogs and enrichment for the people as well.”
Few dogs are trained professionally for conservation efforts, so having everyday companion animals help out makes it a more scalable solution for managing invasive species—and many owners were excited to take part. A post about the study on social media was shared about a million times, Dickinson says, and researchers were able to create 182 dog-and-handler teams across the country. Some of them were retired working dogs, but many were everyday canines that like to sniff things out for fun.
“Anytime you can stimulate your dog, it’s good for them,” Bill Wellborn, one of the study participants, said in a statement. “Pepe [his Tibetan terrier] obviously enjoys it. And it’s a way we can take dog skills and training to help our community.”
The research team gave handlers a sample of spotted lanternflies’ odor so that they could train their dogs to recognize it. Then, when the teams were ready, they put their odor recognition skills to the test in two evaluations.
Indoors, the dogs were able to find the spotted lanternflies’ eggs 82% of the time, and in the field, 58% of the time. Since the insects lay their eggs in easily overlooked locations—the undersides of lumber and tree bark crevices, for example—dogs make much more efficient searchers than humans.
The canines’ strong performance was not contingent on breed, Dickinson says. Dogs and handlers that have a great relationship, and are able to work as a team, were the ones that did very well in evaluations. Beyond protecting local plants and agricultural crops, the activity can be rewarding and fun for both dogs and humans as they get outside and get to work.
“There are obviously hundreds of other ways that you could volunteer to protect your local environment, but this is one way that you could do it with your dog,” Dickinson says. “How cool is that? Go to a winery, work your dog, and have a great day. I mean, it sounds like the perfect life to me.”
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