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In this episode of K9 Conservationists, Kayla speaks to Zoos Victoria Wildlife Detection Dog Officer Dr Nick Rutter and Human Surveyor Shari Barmos about Detection Dog Daisy searching for the critically endangered Tea-tree fingers fungus.
Links Mentioned in the Episode:
Science Highlight: The fluid dynamics of canine olfaction: unique nasal airflow patterns as an explanation of macrosmia
This biologist and her rescue dog help protect bears in the Andes
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Transcript (AI-Generated)
Kayla Fratt 00:01
Hey all, I’m just dropping in to the start of this episode with an ask. K9Conservationists is a nonprofit, and we are heading into the holiday fundraising season. I know there are so many worthwhile causes to support, and times are tough, but we do have to ask. So this year, our goal is to raise just under $5,000 which would get us a new GPS collar to make sure that all of our dogs have their own GPS collars for our surveys and to cover my travel to South Africa for the African Canines in Conservation Conference, which is hosted by the Endangered Wildlife Trust, I’ve been invited to be one of the keynote speakers, and I’m so so so excited, but it’s going to be really expensive to get me there, and we want to make sure that I can do this for free, rather than charging Endangered Wildlife Trust or raising the prices of this conference, which is aimed to help African canine handlers get together and learn we don’t want to be charging them for my, you know, very expensive plane tickets. So if you find the content that we put together on these episodes. Valuable. I really hope that you’ll consider donating, which you can do at k9conservationists.org. Your donations are tax deductible and will make it possible for me to travel to South Africa, again, at no cost to our hosts. And then, aside from being a keynote speaker at this conference, I would also be able to provide some one on one, mentoring and shadowing for several different teams that we’ve worked with remotely for the past several years, which is really, really invaluable. I am so excited about this opportunity to provide free capacity building and support to these programs, but we do need your help to pull it off again, you can donate using the big green donate button on our website, k9conservationists.org. Thank you so much, and here’s the episode.
Kayla Fratt 01:53
Hello and welcome to the K9Conservationists podcast, where we are positively obsessed with conservation detection dogs. Join us every other Tuesday morning to talk about detection training, canine welfare, conservation biology and everything in between. I’m Kayla Fratt, one of three co-founders of K9Conservationists. We train dogs to detect data for researchers, NGOs and agencies. We don’t have any new reviews today, so if you haven’t yet, please write one on Apple podcasts. I know you’re all sick of me hearing me saying this all the time, but they mean a lot to me. But instead of reading review, I would like to give a shout out to our recent course graduate, Ruthmery, who works to protect Peru’s Andean bears alongside her dog, Ukuku. National Geographic recently published an article about Ruthmery in August, so recent, at the time of recording, I think this episode is going to come out, probably in November or later, so it won’t be recent at that point. But anyway, it’s very worth a read. We’ll drop a link to that in the show notes. And it’s just so cool to get to see some of our graduates and students in not just in the news, but really like in the field, just doing amazing work. So yeah, definitely check it out.
Kayla Fratt 03:00
And today I’m super excited. I am finally talking to Dr Nick Rutter from Zoos Victoria, and then human surveyor Shari Barmos About detection dogs, specifically Nick’s dog Daisy, searching for the critically endangered Tea Tree fingers fungus. I will probably mistakenly call this the tree fingers fungus, and a couple other things. I got a little tongue tied a couple times, but it is the tea tree fingers fungus. And I am so excited to share this episode with you, but with you all, I had a great time talking to Nick and Shari and learning a lot about this project. It’s such a cool example of so many different interesting things about bringing conservation detection dogs together with other methods in order to solve really complicated conservation issues. So you’ll enjoy it.
Kayla Fratt 03:50
But first, we do have a science highlight. That’s right, I am, at least for now, back on the science highlight train. And this one is a fun one, but it is also complicated. I had to read it twice, and to be honest, I at times, barely muddled through this paper. It is the 2009 paper titled the “Fluid dynamics of canine olfaction: unique nasal air flow patterns as an explanation of macrosmia,” which was written by Brent Craven, Eric Paterson and Gary Settles and published in the Journal of the Royal Society Interface. I spent a lot of this summer trying to learn more about the physiology behind canine olfaction, and I named Barley’s toys different vocab words like ethmo terminates and bone marrow, nasal and epithelium, to try to make it all stick. But let’s be honest, this is not my forte. So this paper is really worth a look for the visuals, there are some really stunning 3d models of the canine airway in this paper. So let’s get right into it. So to quote the paper, “How odorant molecules reach the olfactory part of the nasal cavity during sniffing without being filtered by respiratory airways is not well understood, especially in non primate mammals with extended, extensive filtering apparatuses,” Going on. The paper continues, quote, “The objective of this study was to investigate canine nasal air flow and the implications regarding olfaction using a combined experimental and computational approach.” End, quote, so basically, they had seven dogs. They were trained to sniff odorous stimuli. Were wearing this crazy muzzle, and it, I shouldn’t maybe say crazy, that makes it sound scary, but a muzzle that was specially designed to measure time, accurate air flow rates through sniffing. So each of the dogs was trained to sniff a series of scent sources that were novel and unknown, comprising of both food and neutral objects compared to respiration. The paper says, quote, “Sniffing occurred at a much higher frequency and yielded significantly higher air flow rates than normal respiration. In general, inspiratory and expiratory phases of a sniff were easily distinguishable by the degree of unsteadiness in the measurement. So inspiratory measurements were smooth with little unsteadiness owing to the potential flow inlet of the muzzle, whereas expiratory air flows, air flow rates, exhibited much unsteadiness owing to the turbulent exhaled air jet.”
Kayla Fratt 06:20
So again, y’all really just have to read this, and particularly read the section titled external fluid dynamics of canine olfaction, because it is so cool. And I’m not kidding here. Again, this paper was tough for me, but it’s cool. I almost just dropped an F bomb there. I’ll do my best to summarize and reduce jargon without oversimplifying, but again, just take a look at the figures if you’re struggling to visualize it. Because I know me describing this is maybe the worst way to understand this paper, but it’s the best you’re gonna get while you’re driving in your car. Again, like I am, not much of a visual learner, and these diagrams and visualizations helped me a ton. So now, when sniffing air is drawn in from about one centimeter away from each nostril, and the authors note that the inter nostril separation is greater than this distance, that’s which suggests that each nostril is actually sampling different air. So if you can imagine like each nostril is sucking in air from one centimeter away from it, but the distance between each nostril is more than a centimeter, so they’re not getting the same air. Maybe it overlaps a little bit, who knows, especially maybe with a smaller breed of dog. This is me. This is me talking, not the authors. So then this air is kept separate, which allows for bilateral processing of the odor, which aids in sourcing the odor. So basically, as the air goes in, you’re getting different air on the left nostril and the right nostril, and then it continues staying separate so it’s not getting mixed. So then the dogs can actually know whether what they’re smelling is coming from the right side or the left side, hypothetically. So then when the dogs exhale, the air goes out of the slits along the side of their nostril. So if you can look at your dog’s nose right now, you’ve got, like, the hole in the front, that’s the nostril, that’s where the air goes in, and then when they exhale, it goes out the slits on the side, the little cute, the cute little slip, but that you kind of draw when you’re drawing your dog’s nose. So this results in the disturbing and mixing of ambient odorants during that exhale, while reducing blow off directly ahead of the nostril, so they’re both like mixing and re humidifying odorants off to the sides and kind of behind them, while making sure that they’re not exhaling back into the air that they’re trying to sniff in front of their own nostril. The exhale air is warm, which may help volatilize trace odorants on the surface that the dogs are sniffing it’s also humid, which I’ve heard in other places, may help volatilize those odorants. So by exhaling through those slits, the dogs are creating two co rotating vortices. Bet that’s not a phrase you thought I was going to say today; along the nose, that draw odor from the sides into the nose, and the authors conclude that, quote, “These fluid, dynamic features of canine expiration increase the effectiveness of the nose, enabling inspiration of otherwise inaccessible odors.” End Quote, and in all caps below that, I have just written, and I’m not going to scream it, because I know that you might have me in your headphones, and I already talked kind of loud, but isn’t that the coolest thing you’ve heard all week. It’s so cool. Y’all, I’m just got genuinely so cool. I will say I got a little bit more confused when the paper then went on to the internal nasal fluid dynamics of canine olfaction. So once we’re kind of like inside the dog’s nose. So this section follows the path of the air and the odor through the dog’s nose. So first off, it says to quote, “Olfactory and respiratory air flows are fundamentally separate phenomena, each with a distinct flow path through the nasal cavity.” End quote, they say that about 12 to 13% of the inhaled air gets diverted to the chemo sensory area. The chemo sensory area, I guess, or it’s directed through the intricate scroll work. Of my favorite vocab word of the summer, the ethmo turbinates. Toni and I spent a long time this summer just telling Barley to get ethmo turbinates, which was his kind of weird squid toy this summer. So again, back on track, 12% ish of the air goes in to the chemo sensory area, and then through the scrolled kind of ethmo turbinates. So these ethmoturbinents are coated with epithelium, which are covered with little cilia that are the actual receptors. Okay, I promise, we’re almost done. I know this is an intense science highlight, but y’all, it’s so cool. And I just like, I can’t give you all this one in like three minutes or less. So then as the dogs exhale, the air moves much more slowly, so it kind of comes in through the inhale quickly, and then as the exhale, it’s more slow the air, this allows the air to hang out in the olfactory recess, which gives receptors extra time to pick up any odorants and actually kind of connect with them before exhalation. And there is so much more to this paper, but I’m not Miss Frizzle. This isn’t a magic school bus episode, so I think that’s as much nasal exploration as we all can handle in an auditory format.
Kayla Fratt 11:13
And we are on to the interview with Dr Nick Rutter and human surveyor Shari Barmos to talk about Daisy and the search for the critically endangered Tea Tree fingers fungus. All right, welcome to the podcast. I’m so excited to have both beyond and to get to talk about this. Shari, why don’t you start out with giving us a little bit of an introduction to you and your job and how you were involved in this project, and then Nick same question, yep.
Shari Barmos 11:38
So my name is Shari Barmos, and I am what you’d call a human surveyor of tea tree fingers fungi. I’ve been working on the tea tree fingers fungus project for about four, sorry, two years now. And yeah, I started off as a volunteer for the Royal Botanic Gardens in Victoria, and I now subcontract my work to go and survey Tea Tree fungi, tea tree fingers in the field.
Kayla Fratt 12:08
Very cool. And do you have any dogs that you need to tell us about?
Shari Barmos 12:12
No, none. At the moment, I am an avid dog lover, but I don’t have the same sort of skill as Nick does in the field of wildlife detection dogs.
Nick Rutter 12:24
I think you’re honorary Auntie status for Daisy, though I think you’re Auntie Shari and she very much likes hanging out with you when she gets to see her.
Shari Barmos 12:32
Yeah, Daisy and I have a very friendly, a very friendly relationship.
Kayla Fratt 12:41
Oh, cute. All right. Well, yeah, Nick, go ahead and introduce yourself and tell us a little bit about the dogs on this project as well while you’re at it.
Nick Rutter 12:48
Yeah, thanks for having me. Kayla, so I’m Dr Nick Rutter. I work for Zoos Victoria as a wildlife detection dog officer. So Zoos Victoria is a not for profit, and we’re a zoo based conservation organization. So we’ve got four different properties around Victoria, where we operate in the southern part of Australia. And I’m fortunate enough to be based at Hillsdale sanctuary, but we sort of move around all the Victoria and yeah, I’m one of three protection dog officers, and we’ve got a number of different projects that we work on with our five operational dogs. And Tea Tree fingers is, is the one we’re working on with Daisy, and that’s the collaboration with the Royal Botanic Gardens. And so yeah, Daisy is, is my personal dog, and we’ve been working together for probably seven years now, or maybe six and a half, actually, and so we’ve got an incredible bond together. She’s seven now. When we started this tea tree fingers project, she was five. And she’s one of those dogs that is really attached to me and really loves that the human aspect of playing, cuddling, sort of getting down and having that human party. We like to call it. We’ve got other dogs in our program that really love balls and tug toys and that human aspect as well. But Daisy is a food and pats and play girl, so I can respect that. Yeah, so well together. But yeah, so we’ve been working on this project alongside Shari and the lead of this project, Dr Michael Amor, for about the two year period. And we we bring to the table the sniffing component of the tea tree fingers project, and we’re incredibly fortunate to work with species experts like Shari, like Dr Michael Amor and the other co authors and collaborators on that project, like Sapphire McMullan-Fisher and all the other people that make that happen. So that’s my role.
Kayla Fratt 14:53
Awesome. Yeah, thank you for that introduction. And yeah, Daisy, sounds really lovely, and it’s always fun to get to have a little bit of a glimpse into. What the dogs actually are like, because so many of these dogs we never get to meet. We don’t actually get to hear that much about them from the papers, at least as far as what they’re like. So why don’t we start out with, you know, some really basic stuff, like, what are these tea tree fungi? Why do they matter? Why are dogs involved? Give us some of the like, bare bones, basics at the start of this project.
Shari Barmos 15:21
The tea tree fingers fungus wasn’t found until 1982 in New Zealand, and it wasn’t described until 1992 in Victoria, Australia. So up until recently, tea tree fingers has not been found again in New Zealand, but we’ve just seen a couple of observations on iNaturalist, which is quite exciting, but we haven’t been able to get over there ourselves. But the tea tree fingers project in Victoria. Yeah, it was first described in 1992 and after it was first discovered and described in Victoria, not much was actually known about it, and no studies were really done to look into the biology of tea tree fingers. So that’s where the team from the Royal Botanic Gardens comes in. And I joined the project as a volunteer in 2021 and that was a time when we were trying to look for new locations and new populations. Because, yeah, the scientists that were looking at fungus around Victoria basically didn’t know if this fungus had been located. Didn’t know its biology, methods of reproduction, uh, locations. So that’s what the project’s been focusing on, and that’s what the fungal experts have been looking at for the past couple of years. So Tea Tree fingers as a species, is very cryptic. It’s very small, like when you first when you see new growth, they can be the size of a small pen dot, and from there, they can grow into individuals about 80 millimeters long, so don’t know, maybe three inches. And yeah, they grow almost exclusively on dead branches that are quite close to the ground of a particular range of different species. And it’s also what we call a micro parasite. We don’t quite like to use the word parasite because it infers, you know, some not to, yeah, it infers behaviors that people look, um, poorly on, but it does actually use a host fungus to be able to grow its own body and spore body and decay the rotting wood that it grows on.
Kayla Fratt 17:57
Oh, that’s so interesting. I Yeah, and I was kind of looking up pictures of it while you were talking, and it looks kind of like a, I don’t, yeah, I guess, I don’t quite know how to describe it. It’s kind of fingery, like, which, I guess makes sense, and kind of a nice, like, burnt caramel, golden brown, maybe a little darker, and it’s kind of flat, ish mostly to the to the branch itself, is that, yeah, broadly accurate. It’s quite flat.
Shari Barmos 18:25
Unlike the sort of bracket hoof fungus that really 3d It’s quite flat to the branch. And as it matures, it grows these elongated lobes that kind of crawl across the dead branches that it lives on. So it’s very, very unique looking, and it’s very easily missed by the human eye.
Nick Rutter 18:47
Yeah, and I was in a similar asking similar questions two years ago, as you Kayla, when I first joined the project, my background is not in fungal ecology, but when I was having the first initial chats about, you know what? Tell me about this species. How does it grow? Where does it live? I was captivated by the fact that it does have these, you know, these crazy appearance, with these little tendrils of fungus growing, and it has that Myco parasite relationship. But it was also really interesting to learn from, from a new person coming on to, you know, learning about this, that the the habitat that it grows in is so specific, and it has such a really kind of like fussy in a way, I suppose you could say it needs certain we think, as far as we understand, it needs certain ranges of humidity and temperature and sunlight and host material that it can grow on it, and these other factors that make it really specific to particular types of habitat. And so in a way, it’s a really good measure of the health of a particular ecosystem. If it is there, then that probably means that that place, that particular ecosystem, that that thicket of tea tree or woodland, or whatever it is that we’re in, that’s probably functioning in a relatively healthy way compared to another part that. Looks similar, but it just might not have all the aspects and make it the healthy, functioning, biodiverse ecosystem that functions needs and all the other wildlife and biodiversity that also occurs in those really healthy ecosystems. And so I was really excited to learn about that, as well as the individual species?
Kayla Fratt 20:22
Yeah, that’s so interesting. So yeah, it does sound like, from what you were saying, Shari, that there’s just not much known about it at all at this point. And then, Nick, if I’m understanding you correctly, it sounds like part of the reason that we’re so interested in it is because it’s kind of an indicator of ecosystem health in this specific sort of thicket is that kind of the the main reason, you know, like, generally, when you think of where conservation dollars go, fungi are not super high on the list of like, where dollars get directed, so where, where does the interest come? Are these just a particularly lucky fungi? Or why? Why are people interested in that? Because, again, it’s hard to get money for, you know, the less charismatic end of the ecological spectrum.
Shari Barmos 21:07
Absolutely. So the interest does come from its habitat criteria. So the fungus also requires long, unburnt patches of heathland. So, you know, as as society expands, and as we, you know, change and modify and threaten habitat, and also as our climate changes and we get less rain and that sort of, those sorts of pressures, you know, we are going to see a drop in these species. So for us to be able to map these species and find out as much as we can about it, yeah, the fact that the species has such criteria that it needs to grow, such as long, unburnt patches of heathland, like 25 year old since fire patches. Oh, wow, yeah, yeah. And this host fungus as well that, you know, require humidity and micro climates. And we still don’t 100% know how it distributes. So the distribution is quite fragmented as well, because where we found the species, we can basically draw a line of where the species occurs and in between each population, which has a very, very small population genetic range and high amount of inbreeding, we can, yeah, we basically see that these small populations are incredibly fragmented. There’s a lot of space in between that are usually filled with houses and industry. So to be able to tell the health of an ecosystem and see that this fungus is occurring there, even if it does have a small population, genetic diversity and high in breeding, it’s, I think it’s within our interest to make sure that that species either continues to thrive or we know, you know what’s threatening it, and what that may be indicating for other species and aspects of the ecosystem, such as bugs and other wildlife that may help in dispersal. And yeah, that’s sort of Yeah.
Nick Rutter 23:32
And I guess the fact that all of that adds up to the critically endangered listing that this species has in the IUCN means that we’re kind of obliged to do something about Yeah, standing back and watching it go extinct is a choice. Doing nothing is a choice, and we have the opportunity and the responsibility as conservationists in general to do something, and we should.
Kayla Fratt 23:59
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And okay, so rewinding a little bit dumb question from an American, what is he planned, just for being, being the voice for the listeners? What? What actually defines that?
Nick Rutter 24:11
Oh, yeah, so that, I guess I may have used that term incorrectly, but what I’m thinking of when I think about tea tree, fingers, habitat, it it from, from what I’ve seen, at least in the sites in Victoria, it really likes dense Tea Tree type, kind of quite enclosed, shady, type of a forest that has some variability as well. But there’s an example of a site that I have been able to visit a couple of times with Daisy to do some training, and we kind of drive up to the site. It’s kind of like a regular road. We get out of the car, we’re in this sort of open paddock type arrangement, and then we step into the habitat. And it’s almost like stepping into this cathedral of this. 80, almost like an ethereal type forest, where we’ve got these tea tree branches that are arising up and overlapping above us, blocking out much of the sunlight. There’s moss underneath. We’re walking on this soft, sort of leafy, soft carpet, almost of of of this really beautiful, cool
Shari Barmos 25:25
Lichen.
25:25
Yeah, lichens are there. It’s a really bio diverse in that respect. And so we’re in this space now, and then we’re walking through that. And then we’ve got these tangle thickets of these extra thick vegetation where we’ve got tea tree branches that have fallen off the main trunks, and they’re sort of leaning up against the tree. They won’t be on the ground, and everything from from a branch the size of your forearm, and then it splits off into smaller branches the size of your finger, then it splits off again into almost like hairs. And it’s the whole aspect. Every part of that branch is potential habitat for this species. And so it could be growing anywhere on that branch, or on the branch that it’s tangled up next to, or the one that way, or the 120 meters that way. And so everywhere in this environment is potential habitat. And so it’s all really important, and it’s part of what, part of what makes surveying for this species. This obviously, is already critically endangered and super rare, but it could be anywhere. Yeah, it’s really complicated to see it, and because it’s brown and camouflaged, the amount of time that goes into looking for it, you can imagine you need to put in a fair amount of time. And it certainly hats off to the people like Shari who are really good at doing that. I don’t have the I wasn’t I wasn’t born with the amount of patience and attention to detail that’s required to look for this fungus effectively. So it gives a paints you a picture of what needs to happen to when you’re stepping into environment. You need to run either on the branch almost at the same speed as a caterpillar might crawl along and just look for every change and every detail of that of that branch. Yeah.
Shari Barmos 26:59
So we can spend. I mean, as a human surveyor, if I saw potential habitat that had host fungus, I’d spend upwards of an hour looking at a meter squared patch of dead branches. So yeah,
Kayla Fratt 27:23
Oh, my god, yeah. I agree. I don’t think I was born with that sort of patience. I also ended up as a dog person. And yeah, so yeah, thank you for kind of painting that lovely picture, and I can helping us understand. And yeah, imagine just yeah, all of the 3d complexity and looking for a brown thing on top of another brown thing. Can it grow on the underside of branches as well? Or does it more prefer to be on kind of the sunlight side? Yeah.
Shari Barmos 27:51
So on the underside of the branches is where we find the host fungus, which is highmonic He specie. So it we call it like a brown paint smear. And this host fungus grows predominantly on the bottom of downed branches or even amongst the leaf litter. But its spore body, the host fungus hymen akiti, it drops its spores down onto the ground, whereas the tea tree fingers as an ASCO my seat fungi division, which also includes things like penicillin and Cordyceps, it actually releases its spores upwards. It grows these. It grows these ASCA that the spores are released out of. And we’re not too sure yet whether they rely on wind dispersal or, as I said before, yeah, insect predation or so we usually find Tea Tree fingers either on top or on the side of branches. But these branches can also be completely obscured by other branches and other shrubs. And it really takes, I like, to get my eyes as close as possible to the branches, and really kind of get my face as close as I can looking at.
Nick Rutter 29:14
And you’ve got that special mirror that you use to, yeah.
Shari Barmos 29:17
So we use a range of tools like mirrors to look for the host fungus underneath the branches. Michael uses a torch to scan along the branch to keep his eyes focused on one area.
Kayla Fratt 29:30
And that’s like a headlamp for people in the US. Not like, not like a blowtorch. Yeah, that was my brain went there first, and I was like, what? Yeah, I thought it didn’t like fire. Okay, I got it.
Shari Barmos 29:48
Yeah. So yeah, it’s, it’s, it’s that sort of time taken by human surveys. I did get involved with the species through volunteer work. But of course, you can’t survive on volunteer work, so that’s why it’s been such a benefit to have Daisy on board, because she reduces the time it takes to detect Tea Tree fingers. She decreases that time by you know, quite a lot, if you wanted to.
Nick Rutter 30:23
Yeah, so I guess we can. We can talk more about the the study that we set up that was really so we, Michael Amor, the project lead, was really the person who incepted the idea. But we, we wanted to be able to explore how a detection dog, a wildlife detection dog, might be able to help assist in fungal conservation. And so that, as far as I my understanding and my sort of literature review suggested that that hasn’t really been done up until this point when we’re looking at conserving and endangered fungus in situ. And so we, Michael, sort of was already involved with this particular species, and so we were exploring about, you know, how can we work with the detection dog to make surveying for this species effective, and combine that with existing techniques and existing human survey methods that Shari is really the expert on and make combine these to make a really effective way to find this species in the wild, so that we can protect it.
Nick Rutter 31:31
And so over the course of the initial study was 12 one survey season and one period. So it was a couple of months, and we think that the species sort of fruits in winter time. And so Daisy and I spent some time leading up to that period, training on a few different samples that we were able to access. We can talk more about some of those challenges. Daisy and I were able to train get up to speed on this, on this target, we needed to really change the way that we searched together as a team. We mentioned how dense and thick this habitat is. It’s also really low in volatility, so it doesn’t smell a whole a whole lot. You need to be quite close to smell it, if you’re adult. I was kind of observing a best case scenario, maybe 3040, 50 centimeters, maybe a meter. Oh, wow, yeah, a big fungus on a nice a nice situation, but often less. And so we needed to change the way that we worked. And so kind of sussing all of that over the course of a few months of training, we got to a point where we were ready to do some field surveys. And the study was set up in a really clever way that we Michael was really the lead in designing, but we had these areas that we’re able to explore in known habitat where we didn’t know if there was a fungus or fruiting body present or not. We were able to go in Daisy and I and survey this area, and we in within that area, Michael had cornered off 15 meter by 15 meter plot. We didn’t know if they were naturally occurring fungi in there or not, but Michael also was hiding between zero and two or three, I think, fungi that were growing on a stick. And so basically, at the end of the day, days and I were searching an unknown area for between zero and three targets or and whatever else was wild there.
Nick Rutter 33:28
And so by doing this study, we were able to collect what sort of performance a detection Bell handler team can achieve, and looking for this fungus after days and I went through Shari, came through, did the same sort of search in the same environment with the same plants, or out planted targets, if we want to call them that. And were you able to collect that information along the way? A few new unknown sparing, sorry, a few unknown fruiting bodies were discovered. And so we’re able to survey new environments while we’re getting an understanding of how well everything works in that way. And then an end of that study. Something like 21 different plots were surveyed. We were able to sort of have a little bit of a comparison of the performance characteristics of detection dog handler teams and human teams. And what we found was that analyzing all of that that in this case, a wildlife detection dog handler team, were able to find more fruiting bodies than the one human surveyor. We’re able to find them faster, significantly faster than a human surveyor, and we also missed less than a human surveyor. That’s when we pulled them apart.
Nick Rutter 34:35
But if we step back and we look at the common goal of surveying and conserving this species, the best case scenario, the best case outcome, as is so often the case in so many detection dog programs and projects, is that when we combine the survey methods detection dog and handlers and humans, of those, we actually had the best detection result in the best detection. Success. And so the take home message from that really, is that anyone who is really suited and skilled at looking for tea three fingers is better than no one looking for teeth at all. If we can have a trained detection dog handle the team, that’s possibly better than just one person, but if we can get both, that’s going to be the best case scenario for detecting and ultimately getting the answers that we want.
Kayla Fratt 35:28
Yeah. Well, that makes sense, and yeah, and especially for something that is this hard to detect, both for people and for dogs, I can imagine that even if the dog is performing better on XYZ measure, there’s still a lot of holes, and yeah, taking that Swiss cheese approach. And one of the things that I always find fascinating to think about with odor in particular, and how odor and site have different strengths and weaknesses. And there are things that are obvious for us, and maybe even some of the ones that are easiest for human surveyors, with some things. I don’t know if it’s the case with this, this fungus that the dogs will miss and vice versa. I know I’ve watched my dogs walk right past wolf scat because the wind is blowing it just straight downwind of them, and it’s like, I can I’ve seen it from a couple dozen meters away. Yeah, it’s just different strengths and weaknesses. Go ahead, totally.
Shari Barmos 36:23
The other interesting aspect of this fungus is that after a season, or after it’s predated large adult Tea Tree finger, fungi will actually leave what we call a scar, which is almost like a handprint of where the fungus has been, and that unlike its adult, live, adult, live co stars, the scars actually don’t have a scent, as far as we know or not, not a scent that’s the same as the live fungus. So in that case, I was able to find Tea Tree finger scars, whereas Daisy wouldn’t detect those because different training.
Nick Rutter 37:10
Along the same line. If we’re in a, you know that, talking about that super dense forest, and if there’s a fruiting body, that’s Daisy’s only 12 kilos, right? So she only comes up to halfway up my shin, and she can sort of reach up and and, you know, and it’s about higher up, but if there’s something out of her range of height and what she can detect and that it’s on top of a branch, then a human’s gonna be able to see that a lot easier than Daisy can work back. And same goes for something’s hiding underneath something. So there was an example. One of my very proud moments of Daisy was there was an example where we were working along the edge of a plot that we were surveying. And it was that sort of really fine hair, like branches I was talking about before, suspended in the air just above her head, where she was working back and forth, back and forth, and I could tell that she was on odor we we’d like to call her. I could tell that she could find something, or she knew something was there, but she was just trying to pinpoint this. And it ended up that there was a two of these tiny bodies. One thing, one was the size of a grain of rice, and one was half that they were just floating in this in the mid air, on this little stick. And there’s no way that anyone would have, would have, would have seen that or thought to look down there. But, yeah, the one end of the spectrum, we’ve got funky that dogs might be more readily accessing, and on the other end of the spectrum, we’ve got the human ones that better. And combining those is the gold standard.
Kayla Fratt 38:42
Yeah, yeah. Were there any cases that you can share of where Daisy, like, caught odor, but maybe wasn’t able to pinpoint it because it was so high up, and then humans had to kind of come in and be like, All right, great. Now we’ve got it. Yeah, doing the teamwork,
Nick Rutter 38:56
Yeah, one of the, one of the fantastic things of working with species experts like Shari and Mike, was that I could say, Hey, I think Daisy is on something here. I can’t see it. She’s having trouble pinpointing it. And often it’s like you just said, it’s higher up or or more often for us, I think, was that it was in such a tangle thicket, I’d say there’s something in there. Daisy can go in there. She’s telling me there’s something in there. But we also need to keep in mind that every I mentioned before, every one of those sticks and branches and tweets is potential habitat. So we want to have a, you know, minimal impact on that environment as possible, right? To say there’s one over there somewhere. Can you, can you see if I can’t see it, Daisy’s trying, she’s she’s not able to scent on it. And then we’ll be able to everyone gather around, kind of thing, and we’ll be able to see it deep down within the in the tangled mess there, but it’d be a tiny little fruiting body. And I can then work with that, and in the moment, I can say, Yeah, Daisy, you did it well done, and with your normal, normal party. Or if there’s another way I need to access that with her, I can, but I. That happened a lot. There was a couple of really interesting times as well, where Daisy would alert to a spot and a similar tangled mess, and we couldn’t find a freeing body. And we would then, you know, as dog handlers, we often think about, why is my dog alerting when there doesn’t appear to be a target there, and there’s entire podcasts worth of conversations we can have around when, when to what to do in those situations. And so the things that were running through our head and our team’s heads were, you know, kind of trying to work out, at what point does this fungus that grows on a host fungus and is is physically intertwined with the host fungus tissue and the target fungus tissue, and they grow together in this tangled mess. At what point does it become a tea tree? Fingers? And is Daisy alerting to? Yeah, at least Daisy alerting to something that we can’t see, but is there, or is she confused by the host fungus? Is there something else happening here? Is she just being really confused in herself? Is she throwing out a false alert for some reason that we need to untangle, getting to the bottom of that, you know, with something that is I really enjoy as a dog handler and someone who’s interested in this kind of stuff, but, but, yeah, there were times when we just didn’t know we had a really cool opportunity to come back to a spot 12 months later, after Jason did that, I remember the day I thought I’d bet you, in 12 months, Michael, there’s going to be a fungus Growing here. And we came back 12 months later and there wasn’t and I think that doesn’t mean that there wasn’t a baby one going there, but similarly, we’ve done that in other spots, and there have been continued to be funky that we knew that we’re there. So it’s complicated. It’s not always straightforward, as it is with almost any wildlife detection dog.
Kayla Fratt 42:01
And even the ones that you think are going to be straightforward sometimes, aren’t? We had a couple of funny ones this summer with Wolf scat in Alaska, where there’s a species of moss that seems to like the environment that wolf scat creates as like a micro environment. So we would often find wolf scat with this species of moss growing on it. And then there were a couple times later and later in the season where barley would alert to a patch of that moss, where I could tell it was like a much more emerald, bright green. It was a really dense, short moss. And I was like, that looks like that same moss that grows on the wolf scat sometimes. But then I’d kind of pick it up and flip it over, and I couldn’t really find any fecal matter left in it. And it’s like, at what point does fecal matter become dirt? And at what point is the moss that’s growing on the on the scat, like, still smell like it? And then, like, do I reward on this? Because I don’t really want him to just then start finding the moss on its own. And yeah, even with something like Wolf scat, which I would not have expected to be starting to have to ask those sorts of questions started coming up, like, Okay, this is why we do, yeah, have the dogs used to, like, you get paid for 70 or 80% of them, and because then it’s not catastrophic. If we just, I would err it on the side of not rewarding on those, particularly for barley, but, yeah, it’s, it’s fun. I mean, it’s part of the thing that keeps us coming back for more on this. So let’s kind of go back a little bit Nick. I’d love to hear more about, like, your thoughts when you first started hearing about this, like, I don’t you, you’ve done stone flies, which is another small, tricky, little target. But when you first heard about this project, you know, what were you thinking about? Dog project fit, how to get the dog up and running, and then how did it go from kind of idea to actual implementation?
Nick Rutter 43:53
Yeah, we, so the stone fly project I did was part of my PhD. And so when I finished that in 20, my PhD was finished in 2021. I was looking for a job that I can, that I can do, and I was incredibly fortunate to have the opportunity I have now with Zoos Victoria and the wildlife detection dog project. So I joined the team. I was working two days a week, and I was in a team meeting, and somebody in from news Victoria said, we have a collaboration with Rob Turner gardens. Does anyone have any ideas around projects that we could combine and collaborate with? Daisy and I were relatively experienced members of a team that was pretty the dogs at the time were pretty new, and so we were able to start a project. So we re said, I have no idea if dogs could find fungus, probably. I mean, why not? They can find probably most things. And so we went, we explored that with some initial conversations about like we had. Earlier, what does it do? Where does it grow, all that kind of stuff? And then we were able to secure some funding through some really generous donors and sponsors of the zoo Vic program who make this whole show happen. And from there, I was able to invest the time into training Daisy.
Nick Rutter 45:20
And so I guess one of the one of the big questions from the start was we understand that this is critically endangered, and like so many projects looking for critically endangered and cryptic species, I really wanted to know that we can get enough training samples and enough diversity of training samples and enough representation of all the different presentations of training samples that I can give to Daisy to train her up to be able to find it. So really, what I’m talking about promoting olfactory generalization from training samples to wild samples. And I like to think in analogies, and so for me, it’s almost to get wrapped my head around that. It’s almost like I’m trying to I’m looking at a really pixelated photograph of a famous person, and I can’t recognize who it is, because it’s so pixelated, but if I get a few more pixels into the image, it’s a little bit clearer, and if I get a few more pixels, it’s a little bit clearer, and a few more and then eventually it clicks, and it’s James L Jones, the voice of Mufasa, and I can recognize that. And so it’s almost like Daisy. When I’m giving her a new sample of finger fungus, she her image of what the the species smells like in the wild is getting a little bit clearer and a little bit clearer and a bit clearer.
Nick Rutter 46:34
So when we’re out in the field and She’s smelling and she’s screening the environment with that really top down type of search that we need to do, that really cognitively engaged screening for your target type search that when she’s screening on a branch and she recognizes a smell that might be relevant, she can sort of scroll through her catalog of odors and think that, yes, this is my target. And so that was one of the biggest challenges on the project, was ensuring that we had access to sufficient samples, and then from there, once we once we worked with Michael amore to obtain those samples, it was very much the case of just figuring out the way that we can work together to search that really dense environment in a thorough and effective way, in a way that has a low impact on that really fragile habitat, and in a way that is is going to be effective. So that’s what we needed to consider, and what we’re able to achieve through quite a few months of training to get to that point.
Kayla Fratt 47:38
Yeah, I can imagine. This does not sound like the sort of thing, like we just had an inquiry call with a new wind farm partner, and it’s like, yeah, you know, we just really don’t charge much for R and D for that sort of thing, because we basically got five dogs that, you know, if you said that you needed to have us on a wind farm tomorrow, We could basically go do that. And this is, this is not that. So what did you you know? Did you kind of know, like, Daisy’s got the right sort of, like, patience and specificity for this sort of project, based on your other work with her, did you have to do much discrimination to help ensure that she was staying specific to this fungus. So yeah, walk us through a little bit of that, and then I’d love to hear a little bit about some of the search patterns.
Nick Rutter 48:28
Yeah, that’s a good question. We spend a lot of time thinking about knowing that this, we’re only after this, this one fungus in an environment where there’s fungi everywhere, including fungi that I mentioned before, the tissue of the host fungus and Tea Tree fingers grows together, right? So I was keen from the start to be able to search in training, practice, in environments where there are other fungus. I’m really fortunate again at Hillsville sanctuary, where we work, that we have access to in the Coronavirus Bucha, and we have access to that type of environment where all these other fungi naturally occur. So we were able to work in that space, and she was able to ignore those we I think initially, I was able to put to collect a couple of other non target fungus and put them in an area in the same way that we were collecting, we had access to target fungus. They would put in an area. But quickly she was we moved on that to the point of, Well, naturally growing non target fungus, able to ignore those really well. And I guess that after a long time and a period of training, the odor, so just the odor, I considered her to be to have odor recognition, and I considered her trained. Obviously, she doesn’t know that I’ve done that. And so she there’s always a period of all of our projects where our dogs are always learning, they’re always understanding, after research, there’s always inflammation, and they’re digesting. And so we, along the way, I. Was able to do have lots of opportunities to reinforce her on the target species, obviously not the non target species. But part of me wonders if, because they do grow together, if sometimes there was in her, in her trying to understand whether or not the target species and the non target host fungus, what they’re related like? There might have been times where she was confused, and that might relate to some of the ones we touched on before. We couldn’t see post fungus. They’re often paired together in that classical conditioning style way. But yeah, overall, I think she definitely understands the target smell.
Nick Rutter 50:38
And to answer your question about search strategy, I think we also came just before that we had worked on other projects. But one of those other projects was the the carcass stuff on wind farms, where we’re talking about, as you know, let there be open area searches. You’re You’re the dogs working and thinking, but you’re running along, and you can pick an odor up that sort of smacks you in the face from 20 meters away. And then you can kind of that grabs your attention, where I found in this project, it was very much contrasted by you needed to have that concentrating on screening for that odor the whole time. And then what we worked towards was Daisy moving really slowly, really tenderly and sort of gingerly, I suppose delicately, is probably the word through the environment. We have five dogs in our in our pool. I mentioned Daisy is probably the best suited to this project, because she’s naturally not a dog that would push through a bush like or in a heap of grass, grassy tusslings like our Labrador, Moss, for example. She’s quite and so that was well suited. And we developed a search star where she would search independently of me within sort of a 10, 510, meter radius, and then I would let her go, she would smell, and then she would come back to me, and I would guide her along the branch, for example, to screen particular objects. It was this dance between screening particular objects and dog direct search handler directed screening searches, dog directed screening searches, working together to make sure we’re essentially covering the area in a thorough way. And that was a learning curve, and many of our projects we work on now are requiring that search dial. So that was a great learning experience.
Kayla Fratt 52:21
Yeah, yeah. It does seem like you all are really starting to push into those sorts of searches. And it’s interesting thinking about the sorts of dogs that you need for that sort of work, and the sorts of training that you need. And I’m so glad that you said that Daisy isn’t naturally a dog who pushes through that sort of thing, because I think there’s so much emphasis if, if the bulk of the work that you’re thinking about doing is wind farm work or carnivore scat work, you might intentionally really look for dogs that are just going to like barrel through everything ahead of them. And I know I’ve heard handlers, and even experienced handlers who are just working on a different project say, gosh, you know, this dog just doesn’t push in as much as I would like. I would like to have a dog who can be more intense about moving through that sort of thing. And it’s, it’s a nice reminder that the sorts of dogs that maybe are more delicate and more thoughtful, there actually are a lot of roles for those dogs in this line of work, and in a lot of I mean, I’m hearing what you’re describing here, and I’m like, gosh, I don’t know if either one of my dogs would really be the dog that I would pick, at least out of, like a litter. If I was looking at a litter of puppies and I knew I was doing this project, I would pick the same dog as who I ended up with for this sort of work. And it’s just that’s fascinating.
Nick Rutter 53:35
It’s a great point. And I think we think about that within a team a lot. And if I step back and I consider, you know, the all the the amazing projects that dogs are able to work on, and we think about reviews that sort of explore detection dog effectiveness and contrast them to other surfing methods. And just exactly like you said, there are, there are projects that would be, or there are dogs it would be more or less suited to a particular project based on their characteristics before you start training. And in my mind, there’s, there’s a broad umbrella category of dogs that would be suitable. And we think about, you know, wildlife safety behaviors and trained enthusiasm, enthusiasm to train with you, and resilience to push through typical situations, not physically, but, you know, motivation wise. But, yeah, there’s all those other pockets that sit on another umbrella of delicate, delicate styles of searching, like Daisy. And then you’ve got your big running around, covering lots of areas, type that’s perfect for wind farms. And you’ve got careful searching other types. And so 100% agree with, you know, it’s, it’s interesting that we’re that where we think about, you know, wildlife protection dogs is this big category, but within that, there are so many nuances for different projects. It’s a great, great point you make.
Kayla Fratt 54:50
Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And I think it’s one of the things I get that I love about it, but also it’s kind of challenging to figure out, you know, how to have. Have the right the right arsenal of dogs available to you, particularly because so many people do work in isolation. You know, it’s a big part of the reason that I really love working within canine conservationists. I mean, there’s a million reasons that I need my teammates, but one of them is just having five dogs and having the ability to fit the dogs to projects. And as much as, like, you know, I’ve got a soft spot for obviously, my two dogs. There are other there have been projects recently that have come across our plate where I’m like, Oh yeah, no. Barley is not the right dog to send on this project. He’s brilliant and for what we’ve been doing. But, yeah, gosh, um, yeah, I feel like I had another question kind of on that topic. But why don’t we kind of pivot a little bit to, are there any lessons learned or things that you’re thinking about kind of for kind of future directions with this project? What is stuck with each of you at this point?
Shari Barmos 55:59
I’d just like to add that during our trials, where Daisy was finding the out planted fungus and I was trying to find the same fungus, it was a very big learning curve for me trying not to see Daisy as a competitor. It was, yeah, during the trials, it was, it was very testing for me, trying to search an area 15 by 15 meter within 45 minutes, which is, you know, an eighth of the time that I would usually spend in that area. So for me, it’s been a great learning curve to not only learn about wildlife detection dogs, because prior to this, I had absolutely no experience or knowledge. So yeah, it’s been great for me to see what the wildlife detection dogs are capable of, especially when it comes to the relatively new field of fungus, fungi conservation, but also just to, yeah, just to solidify the fact that the Wildlife Conservation dogs in such fragile and delicate habitats are still so important in, you know, being able to detect and find what would take us as humans, mere humans, what would take us, you know, potentially days. So this whole experience has been a learning curve, but, yeah, it’s really, really cemented that the team at Zoos Victoria, the wildlife detection dogs, are so important to future conservation, especially in Victoria, Australia. Yeah, I’ve learned so much from Nick and the team. It’s been wonderful.
Nick Rutter 58:00
Yeah, I think some of my key take homes have been we’re so fortunate that the team at the Robert Tanner gardens have been so collaborative and so supportive and understanding of how Daisy and I were kind of on a trajectory of training, on had some growth to do there. And I think that was so fortunate. And I think one of the take homes that is relevant for people who work in this industry, or aspiring to work, or looking for different ways to crack into it, is that working with with collaborators and from the beginning, having a conversations around clear expectations, around what needs to happen from the start of a training process, what it will look like halfway through, and what some of the challenges that might happen and crop up, and that getting to the end goal of being operational, if we want to call it that, that can be a process that’s different for every project, different for every dog, and just being on the same page about expectations is really important and really valuable. And I guess, yeah, that was great.
Nick Rutter 59:04
And then some of the other take homes were, my expectations of your dog have to be realistic. You can start expecting something from the beginning of the project and being being critical. I mean, in that critical thinking in terms of my dog can do this. I can train my dog to do this. We can work towards x, y and z, but my dog is a robot. We need to be able to balance their welfare needs, their abilities, their rest times, their or their other aspects that make dogs such a valuable survey method, but also awesome in and of themselves. We need to respect that as well. And so balancing expectations and welfare and rest times and all of those sort of things are really important too. And then I guess the last thing is, this project has been a fantastic example, in my mind, of of the power of collaboration. And so. So none of what we have been able to achieve from from the wildlife protection dog perspective, could be possible without the support of our partners. So Robert Tanner Garza mentioned, but Indianapolis Zoological Society, you know, it’s closer to your neck of the woods, have supported some of this work. Parks Victoria Trust for Nature. These are Victorian based organizations and the growlers Foundation, other other groups that make the work possible. Everyone has a small path to play in this overall, overall sort of wheel of COVID, in the wheel, I guess, of conserving all kinds of species around Victoria and the world and so every little bit helps.
Kayla Fratt 1:00:39
Absolutely, well. And one of the things that I was picking up on, you know, as you were talking about, you know, realistic expectations, what it’s going to look like at the start, at the middle, and as you move towards operational. I love these projects when they do come around where kind of R and D, and confirming that it works and testing that it works is all part of the project. Because one of the things that I think can be challenging when you’re more on the end of things that we’re on where, you know, we’re not salaried, we get paid per project, and sometimes we get contacted by researchers who have really limited budgets, and we’re trying to figure out how to squeeze, you know, like $10,000 to get as many survey days and travel and per diem and everything as possible out and that it’s amazing how fast $10,000 disappears. And then we’re saying, oh gosh, it would be really nice if we could do a week of search or efficiency trials and really test out whether or not our search strategy is the best for this ecosystem, and make sure that the dogs are actually as efficient as we think they are in this vegetation type, and if that’s not, the researchers explicit goal from the beginning that is a really hard sell for us, and it’s often something that we’re just not able to do. And we just go in and do the surveys, but we’re not able to answer those questions about what like did we actually do the best survey strategy in that situation? We often just don’t know. So I love when these, when projects like this, come around, where answering those questions is considered, in and of itself, a very worthwhile, I was gonna say first step, but it’s actually still like Step 12, and then it’s not that you’re going to stop there, because just answering the question of, can dogs find this and are they efficient? That’s not anybody’s actual goal either. It is where the publications often come in, but then the conservation impact comes next.
Nick Rutter 1:02:34
Yeah, I’m so glad you raised that, Kayla. I think we’re the whole industry internationally now is at a point where we’re, you know, we’re kind of beyond that. Can dogs find x species, y species, that species, and what you just described is exactly what, what the next steps are, you know, how does that? How efficient, how effective? When can it work? Well, what challenges are there? What makes it better? What makes it trickier, and how does it compare to? What other, what other techniques and methods and out there? And out there, and when we combine them, what does it look like? And when we, you know, Nutting out those, those little bits and pieces, I think, is, is where the the important questions lie. So that’s a great point. And And to your point. Then, as well, this study, this study, like you just mentioned, designed in a way that we can answer both those questions at once, how well does it work? And can we find new things at the same time? Is a great design for this project, at least. And I think moving forward, we are going to take on board some of the things that we design in this study for future work, and exploring those big questions at the start of a project, working out ways you can tick those off is a great way to get multiple benefits out of a project. Exactly.
Kayla Fratt 1:03:47
Was there anything I didn’t ask you all about or that you wanted to circle back to and expand on before we wrap up here? I feel like we’ve only been talking for 10 minutes. I still have so many more questions, like there’s so much more we could talk about. But anything you want to bring up before we wrap up here.
Shari Barmos 1:04:04
I’ll have to think about that one for a second myself. Yeah,
Nick Rutter 1:04:08
I’d just like to again thank all the people that supported the project and made it possible. A big thanks to Michael Amor, who ran the project. He couldn’t be here today, but we a big hats off to people like Shari who have been flying the flag for species like tea tree fingers fungus that are not your charismatic brown little fluffy animal, or you’re not brightly colored plumage bird, or your gorgeous flowering orchid that that need, that are just as endangered and just as imperiled and just as much trouble As many other little brown things out there that that play important roles in ecosystems and the environment that we we might not know about. So thank thank you to you, Shari and people like you that make that happen. Oh, look.
Shari Barmos 1:04:54
I just hope that I can continue working with Nick and Daisy next season. Hopefully, fingers crossed.
Kayla Fratt 1:05:00
Yeah, I guess actually, that is the actual last question we should ask is, what? What’s next? What are you all continuing to do tea tree fungus and just working, not just but working more on the conservation and identification side? Do you have other next steps with this?
Shari Barmos 1:05:17
So I’ll be continuing to search for tea tree fingers as a volunteer on my own time. But you know, if funding does become available, I will go out with the team Michael, doing the genetics, and hopefully continue to find more populations. So I intend to stick with this species for as long as I can, for as long as it’s around and keep learning about it. And what about yourself? Nick, yeah,
Nick Rutter 1:05:46
I think this is a great example of a species that needs help, that really needs that that dedication, certainly something I’m motivated and keen to do in the future. My I’m part of a team that we have the privilege to work on so many different species that are similarly in trouble or imperiled, and survey for all those and answer research questions around what dogs can do and and that kind of stuff. And the we would love to be able to work on this in the future, and ongoing support for ongoing financial support that would make that possible is something that we’re always seeking and interested in working towards, and so I’m very grateful for, incredibly grateful for, so that’s what it takes to make it happen, and we would love to.
Kayla Fratt 1:06:31
Yeah, absolutely. Well, thank you both so much. Thank you both for coming on the show. Thank you for the work that you’re doing. It’s just, it’s so cool to learn about. I think there’s so many little elements that you could, I mean, you could take this one case study and turn this just into like the next season of the podcast is like all of the little lessons learned and things to pull apart. So thank you so much for the work that you both are doing and for everyone at home. Thank you for listening, and I hope that you’re feeling just as inspired as I am, and you feel ready to go outside and be a canine conservationist in whatever way suits your passions and your skill set, whether that’s looking for a very teeny, tiny fungi with your eyes or with your dog’s nose, or maybe you’re more like me, and you’d rather be on a wind farm where the dogs get to work big odor cones, either way, You can find show notes, donate to K9Conservationists, join our Patreon, sign up for the wait list for our next online handler course, all of that over at k9conservationists.org. Until next time!