In many cultures, it is said that a dog is a human's best friend. But according to World Wildlife Fund Kenya, dogs are also traffickers' and poachers' worst enemies. Used to sniff out illicit contraband, their sense of smell is 100,000 times better than that of a human. And they are incorruptible.
In a recent webinar, Dr. Philip Muruthi, vice president of Species Conservation and Science at the African Wildlife Foundation (AWF) and Mark Kinyua, a Kenya Wildlife Service (KWS) canine expert and Head of KWS's Marine and Community Program, explained to journalists how dogs have become a useful new tool in combating the illegal wildlife trade.
Sniffer dogs, we were told, are capable of detecting the tiniest amounts of wildlife contraband, such as ivory tusks or jewellery and even rhino horn powder, even if it is hidden in a 40-foot shipping container. As a result, the AWF is promoting the deployment of detection dogs to combat illegal trade in East Africa, where poaching in national parks and other protected areas is one of the greatest menaces to wildlife preservation.
Currently, many of the world's wildlife species are at risk of being slaughtered or captured alive. Round Square, a worldwide association of schools which includes among its objectives education on biodiversity, notes that the illegal hunting of animals is the second biggest direct threat to species after habitat destruction. Wild animals are being poached on a massive scale, with millions of individual animals of thousands of species worldwide killed or captured from their native habitats.
The Worldwide Fund for Nature (WWF), the British-based conservation group, says that around 90 percent of African elephants have been wiped out in the past century, mainly because of a demand for ivory, leaving an estimated 415,000 wild elephants alive today. But it is not only elephants and rhinos which are threatened, so are also smaller creatures, including certain lizards and monkeys.
Why is it important to combat illegal wildlife trafficking?
Muruthi led the discussion at the recent webinar, and highlighted the AWF's "Canines for Conservation" programme's successes and key takeaways.
He said the AWF believed safeguarding nature was not an issue separate from promoting human development. Even as the continent modernizes and aspires to providing food, infrastructure and medicines for all, "wildlife has a key role in the sustainable development of Africa."
" In our organization," he added, "we have three goals: the importance of African participation in ensuring that wildlife thrives in modern Africa and getting outside support... [secondly] to conserve, protect, and restore ecosystems [and] thirdly, Africa's wildlife needs to be conserved in its natural habitats."
Muruthi noted that at one point Uganda, Kenya, and Tanzania were singled out as being among the so-called "Gang of Eight", countries named by the Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species of Wild Fauna and Flora (CITES) as being notorious for smuggling ivory. The three East African countries were named as suppliers and the other five – China, Malaysia, Vietnam, the Philippines and Thailand – as consumers or as routes for the illegal ivory trade.
So why use canines?
Mark Kinyua, the Kenya Wildlife Service canine expert, told the webinar that the service's K-9 unit, established in 2000 in Naivasha with three dogs, has now developed into a powerful organization.
With teams located across Meru National Park, Solio Ranch, Lake Nakuru National Park and Tsavo West National Park, the unit has become a critical component in combatting poachers and smugglers.
Dogs also sniff out illegal wildlife products along major trade routes, such as along roads, on land borders and in airports and seaports. Teams are stationed at Jomo Kenyatta International Airport, Moi International Airport, Mombasa Port as well as on the Kenya-Tanzania border.
The world's most trafficked mammals at present are reported to be pangolins. Such is the demand for their meat and scales, they are taken from the wild on average every five minutes. Realising this, says Mark Kinyua, the KWS has had to teach its dogs to sniff out trafficked pangolins.
Kinyua went on to explain the canine breeds used by the K-9 unit, such as Springer spaniels, German shepherds, bloodhounds and the Belgian Malinois breed. The Springer spaniel is smaller than other dogs, but agile, which makes it suitable for the inspection of luggage in airports and on conveyor belts, while the bloodhound is a good tracking dog with an impressive sense of smell.
However, the dogs are only half of the equation. Each dog has a dedicated handler or trainer, whose goal is not just to refine a dog's sniffing skills but also to build relationships with their dogs.
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Explaining how handlers and dogs go about their work, Kinyua said handlers look out for "red flags", such as changes in behaviour by passengers. When they observe changes, they bring their dogs in to detect contraband, then check suspect luggage.
Kinyua also described new technology for tracking illicit material known as Remote Air Sampling for Canine Olfaction (RASCO). This involves inserting a small, straw-like flexible pipe through a shipping container door, extracting air from inside the container into a filter, and bringing a dog to sniff the filters.
" So when a dog finds an odour that it's familiar with – rhino horn, for example, or ivory or pangolin scales – it normally sits. And then we go ahead and call a multi-agency team and open the container."
Reporting on the results, Kinyua summed up: "Numbers don't lie." The Kenyan K-9 unit has disrupted 102 wildlife trafficking attempts since 2014, resulting in the arrests of 114 suspects. In 2016 alone, there were 41 arrests of traffickers.
