A Detector Dog for Screwworms (Diptera: Calliphoridae)

Abstract

A male German wirehaired pointer, Canis familiaris L., was trained to search for and locate screwworm, Cochliomyia hominivorax (Coquerel); pupae; and animals infested with screwworms. The command, "find it" led to the detection of a screwworm-infested animal and the command "search" led to the detection of screwworm pupae. After approximately 5 mo of training, the dog could detect screwworm-infested animals. After 3 mo more of training, the dog could detect screwworm pupae. Through 7 August 1989, the dog had a success rate of 100% (265 tests) with training dummies and 94.7% (18 successes for 19 tests) with screwworm-infested animals, for an overall success rate of 99.7% (285 successes for 286 tests). Use of detector dogs at quarantine stations could result in increased efficiency, economic savings, and decreased possibility of reintroduction of screwworms into eradicated areas.

Training of a dog for the monitoring of Osmoderma eremita

“…However, the training can start earlier (Dahlgren et al 2012). In particular, before starting the actual training, the dog needs to undertake base obedience training (Welch 1990, Richards et al 2008) and needs to be introduced to the search routines through easy search games by encouraging the dog to find toys or other fun targets (Dahlgren et al 2012).…”

“…To activate the dog's search behaviour, a specific word from the handler (e.g. search or find it) must be associated to the specific work that the dog has to perform (Wallner and Ellis 1976, Welch 1990, Rolón et al 2011, Hoyer-Tomiczek et al 2016. Johnen et al (2013) suggest that the duration of training for sniffer dogs can vary between 7 days and 16 months, but for CDD this period may be longer, as searching for biological targets in nature is likely to be complicated by the presence of numerous olfactory stimuli or by the smell of species related to the target species (Wallner andEllis 1976, Hurt andSmith 2009).…”

“…Several authors suggest that the best parameters to describe the ability of conservation dogs in correctly locating their target are the overall percentage of correct indications and the percentage of correctly detected targets for the total number of targets (Wallner and Ellis 1976,Welch 1990, Engeman et al 2002, Brooks et al 2003, Cablk and Heaton 2006, Long et al 2007, Richards et al 2008, Gsell et al 2010, Lin et al 2011, Waters et al 2011, Suma et al 2014, Hoyer-Tomiczek et al 2016. Although these parameters are often characterised by different names, for this work, the definition used by Allouche et al (2006) was adopted in relation to the assessment of presence-absence predictive models i.e.…”

“…Since then, many species belonging to different insect orders have been searched by dogs: Coleoptera (Nakash et al 2011, Errico 2012, Hoyer-Tomiczek and Sauseng 2013, Kelley 2013, Hoffman 2014, Suma et al 2014, Coppolillo et al 2015, Hoyer-Tomiczek et al 2016, Diptera (Welch 1990), Hemiptera (Pfiester et al 2008, Rolón et al 2011, Hymenoptera (Lin et al 2011, Brocos andGonzález 2015), Isoptera (Brooks et al 2003, Zahid et al 2012 and Lepidoptera (Wallner and Ellis 1976). So far, dogs have been used in a limited number of projects to locate protected or endangered insects, such as bumblebees (Waters et al 2011, O'Connor et al 2012).…”

Linee Guida per il monitoraggio dei coleotteri saproxilici protetti in Europa

“…Infatti, i primi can i per la ricerca sono stati utilizzati per rilevare la limantria Lymantria dispar (Linnaeus, 1758), un lepidottero defogliatore (Wallner e Ellis 1976). Da allora, molte specie appartenenti a diversi ordini di insetti sono state cercate dai cani: coleotteri (Nakash et al 2011, Errico 2012, Hoyer-Tomiczek e Sauseng 2013, Kelley 2013, Hoffman 2014, Suma et al 2014, Coppolillo et al 2015, Hoyer-Tomiczek et al 2016, ditteri (Welch 1990), emitteri (Pfiester et al 2008, Rolón et al 2011, imenotteri (Lin et al 2011, Brocos andGonzález 2015), isotteri (Brooks et al 2003, Zahid et al 2012) e lepidotteri (Wallner and Ellis 1976). Finora, per quanto riguarda gli insetti minacciati e/o protetti, i cani sono stati utilizzati in un numero molto limitato di progetti, in particolare i bombi (Waters et al 2011, O'Connor et al 2012.…”