PARENT SESSION
Monday, August 7, 8:00-11:30 am
COS 14 - Amphibian and reptile ecology and decline
Plantation Room, Cook Convention Center
Presiders: D Nelson
Humans vs K9s: is fear warranted in the race to save the desert tortoise.
Cablk, Mary1, Heaton, Jill2, Esque, Todd*,3, Nussear, Ken3, 1 Desert Research Institute, Reno, NV2 University of Nevada, Reno, Reno, NV3 US Geological Survey, Henderson, NV
ABSTRACT- The US Army National Training Center, Ft. Irwin is the largest Army training facility in the world and is one of four active military bases in the California Mojave Desert. After more than two decades of legal negotiation and regulatory compliance the Army is expanding into desert tortoise critical habitat. The desert tortoise is a federally listed threatened species. In order to mitigate against expansion, tortoises are being translocated out of the expansion area and into surrounding critical habitat. The need to locate and move desert tortoises before training commences is both immediate and federally mandated. The Desert Tortoise-K9 (DTK9) Program was developed to train and field working dogs trained specifically to locate desert tortoises. DTK9 teams produced from this program have been proven to be effective and efficient at finding the elusive tortoises. In support of the Armys mandated translocation effort in the expansion area, a comparative survey between human teams and DTK9 teams was conducted in the fall of 2005 on Ft. Irwin. We assessed the difference in effectiveness of human teams and DTK9 teams in terms of quantitative population estimates, survey time, cost, working conditions and biases. The use of dogs to find tortoises in the Mojave Desert is controversial amongst desert tortoise biologists who believe that dogs pose a significant threat to wildlife. Our research results indicate the contrary is true. Dogs that are trained, evaluated, and certified through the DTK9 Program support conservation efforts without negatively impacting individual tortoises or tortoise populations as a whole.
Key words: Dogs, Desert Tortoise, Conservation