ZooMontana Speaker Series: Working Dogs for Conservation

For a solid decade, Working Dogs for Conservation (WD4C) has partnered with ZooMontana, located in Billings, MT to receive the uniquely peculiar donation of feces - specifically mink scats and otter spraints. Why? These precious samples are used to help train their conservation detection dogs to find these deposits in the wild to examine them for environmental contaminants as part of ecological and human health monitoring efforts. Thanks to these samples and this partnership, WD4C has now trained two generations of mink-otter dog teams who have deployed far and wide.

Come meet Amanda Ott, WD4C’s Team Training Coordinator, and Leo, one of their conservation canines! Amanda will talk about how Working Dogs and this work came about, why dogs are so good at this work, the kinds of dogs they use, and some of their fascinating and impactful conservation projects – including mink, river otter, and now sea otter, too. They will also give a live demonstration so you can see the dogs in action!