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Dog used to sniff out endangered fungi for conservation purposes
ABC NEWS (Australia)
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5/16/2024
Daisy the Italian Water Dog has spent years honing her sense of smell to sniff out a rare fungus. As the fungi teeters on the edge of extinction, scientists hope Daisy and her nose will help save the species before it's lost.
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00:00
Here at Healesville Sanctuary, Daisy the Italian water dog is the only canine in the world
00:06
who can sniff out fungi for conservation purposes.
00:09
Daisy has spent years developing her sense of smell to detect the tiny and critically
00:13
endangered tea tree finger fungus.
00:16
In the forest next to the sanctuary, Daisy has honed her skills wearing a working jacket
00:20
and GPS collar.
00:22
Her handler Nick Rudder says their close bond makes Daisy more productive.
00:26
It's really helpful that we have that unspoken, non-verbal connection that I can kind of see
00:31
what she's thinking at any given time and she can read me really well.
00:34
We can move through the environment in a really delicate way and we can continue to look for
00:40
this species for a long time even if we're not finding many.
00:44
Although Daisy is the only canine capable of finding the elusive fungus, other dogs
00:48
in her training program can find platypus, frogs and native rats.
00:52
The tea tree finger fungus is only found in six locations in Victoria and is a good barometer
00:57
for how healthy an ecosystem is.
00:59
Before Daisy started finding the fungus, it required painstaking surveying by people who'd
01:04
examine the tree branches.
01:06
An experiment found that Daisy, competing against a human surveyor, could find more
01:10
fungus, could find it faster and was less likely to miss it.
01:13
Now researchers are saying that collaboration between canines and humans yields the best
01:18
results.
01:18
[BLANK_AUDIO]
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