INNOVATION AND CREATIVITY AWARD WINNERS!

Collin Singer MD- Louise Wilson Founder of Conservation Dogs &Aran Clyne Specialist Trainer and Handler.

Well, how happy are we? 

Ecstatic! 

Conservation Dogs has won the “Innovation and Creativity Award” at the 2014 Flintshire Business Awards in recognition of our pioneering projects in conservation using our specially trained wildlife detection dogs to assist with conservation needs, ecological surveys and wildlife crime detection.

In the largest category of the night, Conservation Dogs fought off 9 other nominees to win the prestigious "Innovation & Creativity Award". Sponsored by Glyndwr University, the award was to identify and reward the company which launched the most innovative and new product/service

The award recognises Conservation Dogs initiatives to help stop the illegal wildlife and ivory trade by becoming the first UK Company to win a contract in Gabon to supply and train dogs to detect ivory, leopard skin, iboga root and pangolin scale all of which are under threat from the illegal wildlife trade in Gabon.  It also recognises the work that we done with conservation projects here in the UK, with the detection of the scat of pine marten, dormice, great crested newt, bats and mice for surveying purposes which give conservationists a huge amount of information of the species, its health, habitat, breeding and population.

Of course, none of this would be possible without the hard work and amazing abilities of our CONSERVATION DOGS ...

 So to our fantastic dogs; 

Twister, Luna, Kim, Kim2, Ned, Sasha, Lumi, Cooper, Charlie ... Well Done.

Keep an eye on this blog... we will have more exciting news to share soon...

NEW K9 RECRUITS

Conservation dogs are looking for some new K9 Recruits to join our expanding teams. We have a special anti-poaching project starting overseas and we are looking for two dogs to meet this amazing new project. ideally like our last project in Gabon we would like a Labrador and a Cocker spaniel or Springer spaniel. These dogs need to be light in colour, ages from 10 months to 2.5 years old.

These dogs will be part of an amazing elite sniffer dog team working abroad with a large wildlife organisation and National Park. they will be housed with the handlers and have 24/7 kennel hands to tend to their needs. They will be loved and cared for better than any dog and the welfare standards are amazing.

This project is a very important one, helping to curb the smuggling of illegal wildlife products, therefore we are eager to find the right dog for the job. We need the typical ball mad, enthusiastic and fearless happy dog.

If you can help with helping us give a dog a forever working home and an amazing job please contact us for more information.

Louise.wilson@wagtailuk.com

Lumi and Cooper- trained by Conservation dogs for the Gabonese Government.
On the hunt for illegal wildlife traders and smugglers.
(seen here with Handlers and driver.)

Harper Adams University visit

On Friday we had a big day presenting for Harper Adams University and we also carried out a demonstration. 

First part of the day we presented our PowerPoint to the students and answered any questions in relation to the use if dogs in wildlife research and conservation.

The second part of the day we carried out demonstrations with Twister our Bat Carcass Detection Dog to show how much more quicker a dog can retrieve bat carcass's in comparison to human search teams. 

Then we used Luna to show how quick a dog can find Pine Marten Scat (faeces), from old scat to wet scat and in all different terrain with low abundance in an area. 

The demonstrations where well received and everyone including the dogs seemed to enjoy it. 

We then where interviewed and had to have a few photo's done which Luna as per usual loved. 

We where very happy to have been asked to visit Harper Adams and hope to visit again with our :-

*Great Crested Newt Detection Dog 

And our 

*Dormouse Nest Detection Dog 

Thanks again to all those we met and for Nicky Hunter's Hospitality . 

Tanzania trip success

We have just returned from Tanzania working once again with WCS. We were asked to carry out presentations and write feasibility study to review the possibility of the use of detection dogs working in national parks, road blocks as well as sea and air ports! Thanks to Tanzania for your amazing hospitality and we hope to work with you all soon. 

Ivory detection dog success!

Conservation dogs involvement in this amazing Gabon project is outstanding and we are so very proud and hope to do the same in other African countries also. 

Luna's involvement in fighting grey squirrels invaders!

Great article here about the work Emma Sheehy did in Ireland and she was so innovative and pioneering to use our amazing Pine Marten Scat Detection dog in Ireland. Great article we are so happy. 

Happy New Year- News From 2013!!

2013 has been an amazing year for all dogs and staff at Conservation dogs. We could not have dreamt of having the response we have had from setting up a dog section for the detection of smuggled animal products and wildlife in 2011.

We continue to be called out to help search for the elusive Pine Marten in Wales and Shropshire and I am happy to say this working relationship is to continue into 2014 with more pine marten scat searches already booked.

Luna whilst searching for Shropshire Mammal Group.

Luna has made her new years resolution to never give up looking for Pine marten scats in the Shropshire area as she determined to prove their existence there. 

In January 2013 we deployed the worlds first Ivory, Pangolin scale, Leopard Skin, Shark Fin and Iboga Root detection dogs to Gabon and started the gruelling 3 month handler procurement and training program for the Gabonese Government; 

• Gabonese National Park Agency = Agence Nationale Des Parcs Nationaux (ANPN)
• The Ministry of Water and Forest =(MINEF)
• Wildlife Conservation Society = WCS

Cooper and Lumi with Handlers and Dog Vehicle Driver

To date the success of these dogs has been shocking, in such a short time of there operational searches they have had numerous find - thus helping stop the illegal wildlife trade and helping prevent illegal poaching. 
This is the blue print of more dog sections to come and with Lumi and Cooper leading the way- soon the fight against Wildlife Crime and illegal wildlife Trade will come to a head! We all need to try to help make a difference in regards to wildlife conservation.

New projects have been initiated and have had great success- our Dormouse Nest Detection Dog Kim is fully trained and ready to trial. Its now a matter of setting up the right project with Cheshire Wildlife Trust and other Trusts around the country to utilise Kim in the best way possible.

Our other dog Kim, a Springer spaniel- has been trained to detect Great Crested Newts. this training process due to the sensitive nature has taken much longer than usual sniffer dog training. However we are on the road to having a fully trained GCN detection dogs. She will initially be used for research surveys and for a specialist report that is planned with experienced Ecologists. Once this Study is done we should have available a GCN Dog and Handler team a for hire. 

Kim our New GCN detection dog.

The worlds First Great Crested Newt Detection dogs- that has a good ring to it!!!

That is not the end of our interesting new projects or exciting requests, from illegal fishing net detection dogs, to Big Cat scat detection dogs- we have inquiries daily to help assist with wildlife projects or wildlife crime prevention  in the UK and Abroad.

Conservation Dogs were kindly invited to attend and exhibit at The National Environmental Crime Conference in London in November. This was a honor to be invited and it was a thrilling event to be present at. Conservation dogs were the only detection dog experts at this conference and we made many new contacts and hopefully some more future clients as well. Watch This Space!

Our display area at the NECC 2013.

https://www.facebook.com/NationalEnvironmentalCrimeConference

So a quick round up of some of this years news links and videos, please see below some of our best article this year and some great footage of our dogs working.

ENJOY!!

http://edition.cnn.com/2013/09/25/world/africa/poaching-stinks-dogs-sniffing/index.html
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EDlfuq9dpfA
http://www.worldsecurity-index.com/pressdet.php?id=5265
http://blog.petplan.co.uk/11/2013/pet-people-features/the-conservation-efforts-of-luna-the-labrador/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sD6nzbi-VIg
http://www.co-operative.coop/join-the-revolution/our-blog/biodiversity/people-and-pine-martens-in-wales/Pine-marten-update---July/