Conservation detection dog Oakley patrols the banks of Canberra's lake identifying noxious alligator weed
Oakley the border collie is a conservation detection dog who sniffs out alligator weed in Canberra's Lake Burley Griffin for the National Capital Authority (NCA). Each small piece of the noxious weed can potentially lead to a new infestation, but Oakley can detect the smallest fragment — even when it's dormant.
Transcript
00:00Well, we train our dogs by showing them whatever the target odour is and then rewarding them.
00:08Oakley has been shown alligator weed from all different places across Australia and
00:12he has been rewarded constantly with, especially his ball, which we've got going on here.
00:19Then that's when I come in with my GPS and I get the data point of where it is, Oakley
00:25take a photo of it and then I also kind of map the size of the weed to be able to produce
00:31mapping so we can look at density mapping so that they can see where their kind of high
00:35priority areas are.
00:36The tiniest bit of alligator weed that might have a root system attached to it, it can
00:41end up on a bank and create a whole new incursion site so it's really, that's why it is federally
00:47listed and it is a noxious weed because it just, it grows.
00:52Alligator weed is only but one of Oakley's target odours, so he is also tamed on tiger
00:57quoll and on koala and this gorgeous little mammal called the kawari, which is up in the
01:03stoning riser deserts and he looks for them in burrows up there as well.