Most of us dream of a job that brings our passions together to help others, and Lauralea Oliver is no exception. As a recent LAist story detailed, Oliver's love of animals and nature led her to an entrepreneurial career path in an up-and-coming area: ecological scent detection.
Her company, k9inSCENTive, uses dogs' strong sense of smell to identify environmental risks and support conservation efforts.
Joined by her team of women and their working dogs that specialize in sniffing out invasive plants, endangered species, fungal pathogens, and other conservation concerns, Oliver's work is rooted in her canines' ability to locate poop — so that scientists can extract DNA materials from it for ecological research, explained LAist. Many of the team's current projects also revolve around finding dead birds and bats at solar and wind farms.
🗣️ Should we be actively working to kill invasive species?
🔘 Absolutely 💯
🔘 It depends on the species 🤔
🔘 I don't know 🤷
🔘 No — leave nature alone 🙅
🗳️ Click your choice to see results and speak your mind
However, the dogs have been involved with many projects beyond just poop hunting over the past several years — including fighting plant poachers, surveying for endangered orchids, protecting at-risk turtles, and sniffing out endangered plants.
Canines' "capacity to not only learn multiple scents, and great numbers of multiple scents, but to remember them for years and years … just still kind of blows me away," remarked Alice Whitelaw, co-founder of Working Dogs for Conservation (one of k9inSCENTive's peers with a similar mission), in LAist.
Many of the groups have even expanded their services to detect poachers, environmental contaminants, invasive plants, and environmental justice issues. The dogs' skills are highly useful because they save conservationists time, money, and resources while supporting natural biodiversity and species preservation, LAist noted. The k9inSCENTive company offers private training for pet owners and working dogs, along with other evaluation and consultation services.
As the women's efforts prove, there could be serious power in scent work beyond police, military, and search and rescue missions if we trust and rely on our canine companions and train them adequately. Working dogs have already been trained to sniff out plastic waste to prevent it from entering landfills and to detect hidden contaminated areas after oil spills.
"I'm realistic, and I know they can't find the target every time. In fact, I often think about making a t-shirt that says, 'It's science, not magic!'" Oliver once confessed to SFGate. "But even so, I'm just amazed by my dogs all the time."
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