Dog helps sniff out invasive ants on California island
LOS ANGELES — Scientists assessing long-term efforts to eradicate invasive ants on the Channel Islands off the Southern California coast have enlisted a four-legged expert to make sure a project to kill off the destructive pests has succeeded.
A yellow Labrador named Tobias has lived for three months with a handler on Santa Cruz Island. The specially trained dog keeps its snout to the ground, rooting through more than 1.6 square miles (4.1 square kilometres) of underbrush, searching for nests of Argentine ants that threatened the ecosystem after they were introduced decades ago.
Christina Boser, an ecologist with the Nature Conservancy group, said Tuesday that Tobias has not yet discovered any new ant populations — a sign that a project started in 2009 to wipe out the unwanted insects has probably worked.
“The ants are very hard to find,” said Boser, adding that researchers decided to try a detection dog after first using lures made with a synthetic ant pheromone. “He’s good at his job, and he enjoys it a lot.”