Impact of weather conditions on cheetah monitoring with scat detection dogs

Noreen M Mutoro,Mary Wykstra,Jana S Petermann,Jonas Eberle,Jan Christian Habel,Gertrud Schaab

doi:10.1017/s0266467421000316

Abstract

AbstractKnowledge on cheetah population densities across their current range is limited. Therefore, new and efficient assessment tools are needed to gain more knowledge on species distribution, ecology and behaviour. Scat detection dogs have emerged as an efficient and non-invasive method to monitor elusive and vulnerable animal species, like cheetahs, due to the dog’s superior olfactory system. However, the success of locating scat using detection dogs can be significantly improved under suitable weather conditions. We examined the impact of temperature, humidity and wind speed on detection rates of scat from cheetahs during a scat detection dog survey in Northern Kenya. We found that average wind speed positively influences the scat detection rate of detection dogs working on leash. Humidity showed no significant influence. Temperature showed a strong negative correlation with humidity and thus was excluded from our model analyses. While it is likely that wind speed is especially invalid for dogs working off leash, this study did not demonstrate this. Wind speed could thus influence the success of monitoring cheetahs or other target species. Our findings help to improve the survey and thus maximise the coverage of study area and the collection of target samples of elusive and rare species.

Highlights

Wildlife monitoring is crucial for effective nature conservation as it provides valuable information on the distribution, abundance and demography of species and local populations (Yoccoz et al 2001)
We examined the influence of temperature, humidity and wind speed on the detection rates of scat from cheetahs, using two dogs during uncontrolled field surveys in two national reserves in northern Kenya
The significant effect of mean wind speed during our survey may have resulted from working the dogs on-leash

Summary

Introduction

Wildlife monitoring is crucial for effective nature conservation as it provides valuable information on the distribution, abundance and demography of species and local populations (Yoccoz et al 2001). Detection dogs have emerged as an alternative non-invasive method to monitor elusive, rare and endangered animal species (Reed et al 2011) This method is based on the dog’s superior olfactory system (Becker et al 2017) and has been successfully used for many species, including cheetahs Acinonyx jubatus (Becker et al 2017), koalas Phascolarctos cinereus (Cristescu et al 2015) and non-human primates (Orkin et al 2016). The results of our study provide data on the best weather conditions suited for scat detection dogs worked on leash and help to improve future cheetah monitoring with scat detection dogs

Material and methods

Results and discussion

226 Appendix