WCT's Conservation Dogs: Breaking New Grounds (Documentary)

Extraordinary sense of smell, limitless zeal, and love for the job. With these unique traits, dogs have been assisting humans for thousands of years. As we grapple with poaching, forest fragmentation, and other human activities that harm wildlife and ecosystems, WCT has turned to Conservation Dogs for help. An integral part of the organization, four working dogs have been solving complex conservation problems for the past two years. Acting as force multipliers, they are assisting various departments at WCT in carrying out their conservation interventions more efficiently.

Trailer

English Film Premiere

Hindi Film Premiere

Marathi Film Premiere

Training lays the foundation, preparing the dogs for challenging field conditions. The handler and the dog work as a cohesive unit, with the handler providing mental stimulus to the dogs to perform a variety of tasks. While some trainings are imparted in a controlled environment, several tasks are learnt on-the-job.

For the first time in India, dogs are being used in Road Ecology surveys. Our dogs are helping us gather data about the presence and movement of wild animals, especially large carnivores, around roads, railways lines and canals that cut through forests. Ultimately, those insights guide our policy recommendations for mitigation measures along these linear infrastructures.

Another important task is the detection of snares: common, camouflaged and deadly tools to hunt animals, employed by subsistence hunters as well as professional poachers, that claim the lives of innumerable wild species.

Our dogs are also proving to be an asset in conflict mitigation. When wild animals enter human-dominated landscapes, these dogs help track them in an expeditious and effective manner, thereby ensuring safety of humans as well as wildlife.

With conservation challenges constantly evolving, the possibilities of dog-assisted solutions, too, could be endless.

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