Dogs can scent-match individual Eurasian beavers from their anal gland secretion
2020
Rosell, Frank | Kniha, David | Haviar, Milan
Dogs Canis lupus familiaris are increasingly being used in wildlife conservation studies, due to their extensive ofactory capabilities. Dogs are a useful tool for species detection, species discrimination (or subspecies), and scent-matching of individuals within a species. Scent-matching can reduce or eliminate the need for expensive genotyping of obtained biological samples. We investigated the potential use of dogs to scent-match individual Eurasian beavers Castor fiber via anal gland secretion (AGS) samples, in 30 double blind floor platform experiments. We hypothesised that dogs can scent-match individual beavers when presented with AGS from different beavers of both sexes. We showed that dogs were able to scent-match individual beavers with average accuracy of 88.9%, sensitivity of 66.7% and specificity of 93.3%. Our results suggest that scent-matching dogs may be used as a reliable additional method to DNA analysing of biological samples to improve accuracy of individual beaver detection, and a better alternative than live-trapping/capturing in monitoring of specific beavers in e.g. a reintroduction project.
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