This stray dog from San Francisco is helping scientists at sea.
Some dogs go down in history. Laika went to space. Rin-Tin-Tin was a movie star. Eba the Whale Dog (@eba_the_whale_dog) doesn't know it, but she's making an invaluable contribution to orca conservation.
Eba, a mixed-breed rat terrier, was just three pounds when she arrived at a shelter in Sacramento, California. Research biologist Deborah Giles' sister adopted Eba, but Eba didn't get along with the family's other dog. Giles decided to adopt Eba from her sister, and as it turns out, Eba made a fantastic scent-detection dog.
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Price 💰 Eba is trained to sniff out orca excrement. Despite orcas' large size, their poop isn't easy to find. Giles described it as "looking for a needle in a haystack when the entire haystack is moving and so is the needle," per RexSpecs.
Even for a dog, Eba's sense of smell is incredible, and helps scientists more accurately find and collect orca poop. The poop is then sent to the San Diego Wildlife Alliance, where researchers can analyze it for information such as the whales' nutrition, stress levels, and even pregnancy, according to King 5.
Orcas are a protected species. One type of orca, the southern resident orca, is critically endangered. The Center for Whale Research estimates that only 73 of these orcas remain.
Orcas are threatened by dwindling food sources, pollution, and commercial hunting. Even noise pollution from ships can kill them — they're unable to effectively use their echolocation to hunt, and subsequently struggle. That's another reason why Eba is such a great resource for scientists — they don't have to get anywhere near the orcas for Eba to track their poop.
Eba's a conservation celebrity. Not only is she changing how we study and protect killer whales, but she's spreading joy, too.
"Our joke is that she's a Disney Princess," Giles told King 5. "She was on Disney+ for 'It's a Dog's Life.' She's just such a lovely being. Literally people's faces light up when they see her and she just has that way of bringing out joy in people."
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