Conservation Dogs May Have Sniffed Out the Elusive Sumatran Rhinoceros 

In this article:

• How did dogs find Sumatran rhinoceroses in Way Kambas National Park?
• How few Sumatran rhinos are there?
• How powerful are dogs’ noses?
• How do you train dogs to sniff for wildlife? 
• Can pet dogs benefit from nosework?

Two dogs trained by Working Dogs for Conservancy (WD4C) may have passed the ultimate sniff test: Yagi and Quinn discovered evidence that the evasive Sumatran rhinoceros still walks in Indonesia’s Way Kambas National Park. 

People couldn’t find these rhinos; dogs may have pulled it off.

Conservation publication Mongabay originally reported on the dogs’ potential discovery, which surprised veteran conservationists who had convinced themselves there were no more Sumatran rhinos in the park. 

Nina Fascione, executive director of the International Rhino Foundation, told Mongabay that the organization had tried everything from drones to rangers on foot to camera traps in their search for the critically endangered animals. In fact, she told the outlet, she hired the dogs as a last resort—if they failed, no more resources would go to the search.

The dogs found what is believed to be a rhino’s droppings in just two days. 

The team tested the scat to ascertain whether it’s the rhino they believe it is, and it came back positive. They’ve sent it out for two more tests to confirm what the dogs had found. As of this writing, Fascione is still waiting on those results—but she’s confident in the hired noses. 

“Quite honestly, in my opinion, I trust the dogs,” Fascione told Mongabay. “The dogs were trained on rhinos’ scat. They found what everybody believes is rhinos’ scat. We think it’s really good news.”

There are fewer than 50 Sumatran rhinos in the world.

This is such a big deal because Sumatran rhinos are “on the edge of extinction,” with a total world population of at most 47 animals, according to a report by the International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN). They are difficult to track because there are so few of them and they live in dense forest.

Crystal Sharlow-Schaefar, the director of development for WD4C, told us that, though the find was an enormous one in the conservation world, Yagi and Quinn celebrated in their typical way. “Finds are celebrated with their favorite toy, of course!” she said. “These dogs are heavily toy-motivated, and they work for the love of a ball.” 

Dogs’ noses are very powerful.

A dog’s brain has about 300 million scent receptors compared to our own five million, and the part of their brain dedicated to analyzing smells is 40 times larger than the equivalent part of the human brain. Using that great discrepancy, dogs have been trained to smell things we can’t—including diseases and missing people. 

Working Dogs for Conservancy does what its name suggests: the nonprofit trains rescues and “career-changers” to aid conservation work with their superpowers. Yagi was one of those career-changers. The black Labrador was trained to be a service dog, but ended up being too high-energy. But his determination and exuberance are paying off now; WD4C says on their site that his “enthusiasm shines in the field.” Quinn, on the other hand, was trained as a conservation dog during her puppyhood.

How do you train a pair of four-legged rhino sniffers? 

Along with their talented trainers, Quinn and Yagi were selected “based on the combined skills and experience of each team as well as availability,” Sharlow-Schaefer said.

Yagi and Quinn each received three to four months of initial training in conservation work, and can usually master a “new target in an afternoon,“ as Pete Coppolillo, the executive director of WD4C, told Mongabay. To be extra thorough for this mission, however, the dogs trained for a couple of weeks specifically on adult male, an adult female, and juvenile scat from ten rhinos living in the Way Kambas Rhino Sanctuary. The training paid off. Conservationists had been looking for evidence of these rhinos for years, and Quinn and Yagi may have found it in under 48 hours.

The teams are home now from their “extensive fieldwork,” and are waiting along with the rest of the conservation world for confirmation of their find, “which is a multi-step process,” Sharlow-Schaefer said.

Your dog may benefit from nosework, too.

Not every dog is cut out to find critically endangered species, but many of them can enjoy scent-based enrichment. This can come as part of a structured activity, but it can also be as simple as letting them sniff more on a walk. Remember, smell is a huge part of how your dog sees the world.