Friday, June 29, 2018

Havoc!

Hi,
Digger needs a new home.  He is jealous of the Papillon who took his place in someone's heart.  He attacked the Papillon, another boy.  Despite being much larger, he didn't kill the Papillon.  He could have.  Now he is looking for a new home.  He has a bunch of agility titles, his JE, junior earthdog title, has done NoseWork and Barn Hunt and is an all around lover.  .facebook_1529860272743.jpgDigger needs a home, as do a litter of girls at my house.

That is another heartbreaker.  I had been turning people away because we only had four puppies.  Then at the last minute, two families backed out leaving me with three girls to place in homes.  Try as I might, I can't remember who the four families were who were sent to check elsewhere for a puppy.

If you know of anyone looking for a feisty little blue girl, there is one here.  My friend in the UK wants a blue girl, so she will take Tootsie back with her when she visits in August and I will most likely keep Jade, alias MJ for Myshka Junior, since she reminds us so much of her mother, the sweet Russian girl we have.  Their daddy is Henry, the boy from England.  Nice boy, nice puppies.

The boy in the litter, Scout, successfully rode in my lap to Maui the other day to be delivered to his new people.  They were on their 25th wedding anniversary to Maui at exactly the right time to go to pick up their new family member, Scout.  I was privileged to meet them on Maui and tell them why I thought that they needed to do this and that and how to do it!  I flew back to Hawaii Island and didn't get too airsick.  Never had before, but was on the verge both ways that day.  BAD turbulence!

Yesterday Kathleen, Frank, Kyle, Sean, Michelle, and I went to Hilo to take a helicopter ride over the lava flowing into the ocean.  The cloud cover and rain were so bad that the flights were cancelled.  We will have to try again!!!

So much for the recent news!  Have been trying to put puppy pictures on here.  Isn't happening!  Rats!!!

If I didn't already show you this, Reese, Henry and I did go to Lehua Island to try to find rats.  Not sure how many we found or if we found any.  It was hot, dry, slippery and interesting.  I won't get to go again, the dogs may well go in December.  I am not cut out for climbing 45 degree slippery lava.  Too scary for a wuss like I am.  Whew!!!  I didn't fall, but someone else did.  He didn't die, thank goodness.  Had to have some bones in his hand mended together though.  Rats!!!
Anyway, life goes on.

It is raining.  I need to bring in the pups.

The Curmudgeon Says Bye for now,
c



 
DEPARTMENT OF LAND AND NATURAL RESOURCES
 
DAVID Y. IGE
GOVERNOR
 
SUZANNE D. CASE
CHAIRPERSON
 
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
June 17, 2018
 
RAT SNIFFING DOGS DEPLOYED TO TRY & FIND REMAINING FEW RATS ON LEHUA
Specially Trained Border Terriers Spend Four Days Scouring the Island
 
(Lihue) – Henry and Reese are six-year-old and three-year-old Border Terriers respectively, who spent most of last week crisscrossing the rugged, hot, wind-swept terrain of tiny Lehua Island.  Lehua is a State Seabird Sanctuary and the site of an intensive restoration project over the past nine months to protect seabirds by removing invasive rats. In 2017, the partners of the Lehua Island Restoration Project applied a conservation bait to remove the population of invasive Pacific rats which eat the chicks of nesting seabirds and devour the native plants that help support a large variety of bird life here.
 
Since the operation last summer, monitoring teams continue to observe more albatross on Lehua Island than previously seen. There continues to be no sign of rat predation on plants or seabird eggs, something that was commonplace a year ago. 
 
“Whole island eradications are very complex and seeing a few surviving rats is a reflection of this,“ explained Sheri Mann, Kaua‘i Branch Manager for the DLNR Division of Forestry and Wildlife (DOFAW). The Lehua Island Restoration Project Partnership is working to ensure the island is free of invasive rats. An extensive network of motion-triggered cameras picked up seven rat images since last fall and the team is working diligently to address the situation.
 
That’s where the small dogs come in.  Border Terriers have a long-established reputation of being able to pick up the scent of rodents.  Henry and Reece are owned by Charlotte Metzler of Hawi, Hawai‘i who along with Certified Professional Dog Trainer Kyoko Johnson of Country Canines spent months preparing the canine pair for their Lehua deployment. The training included trips to O‘ahu’s Ka‘ena Point Natural Area Reserve. The natural environment there closely duplicates what the dogs encountered on Lehua.  Johnson said, “The major thing we wanted to do in training is to desensitize the dogs to the presence of seabirds, so they can focus on their task of finding rats above ground or in burrows.”
 
Once Henry or Reese catch the scent of a rodent their human handlers and monitoring staff with DOFAW and Island Conservation mark the location. Mele Khalsa of Island Conservation remarked, “With the help of these dogs we are able to actively search for recent rat activity and can tailor more effective responses of those specific areas.”  Dogs, like the Border Terriers, have been successfully used in other conservation projects around the world.
 
It was a tough week of sniffing for Henry and Reese.  The grass on Lehua currently is well over their heads and much of the ground they traversed is steep, loose, lava rock.  While Lehua is only 279 acres in size, its topography made the canine’s rat search very challenging with the need for lots of water and rest stops. Conservation detection dogs have been used previously in Hawai‘i to locate endangered species like the Hawaiian hoary bat and the wedge-tailed shearwater to measure impacts of wind farms.  The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service, one of the partners in the Lehua restoration effort used them in a pilot study to try and detect avian botulism in the koloa maoli, the endangered Hawaiian duck.
 
During their first deployment to Lehua the dogs showed significant interest in three locations. All of these potential rat burrows were targeted for additional bait application and marked to check in the future. Plans are being made for Henry, Reese, and their handlers to return to Lehua for additional searches.
 
# # #
 
 
RESOURCES
(All video & images courtesy: DLNR)
 
Web feature: Lehua Rat Detection Dogs
 
HD Video: Lehua Rat Dogs (Lehua 6-12-18 and Kaena Point NAR 5-21-18)
https://vimeo.com/274936283 (shot sheet attached)
 
Photographs: Lehua Restoration Project Rat Sniffing Dogs (June 12, 2018)
 
Photographs: Rat Detection Dogs Training, Kaena Point NAR (May 21, 2018)
 
 
Media Contact:
Dan Dennison
Senior Communications Manager
(808) 587-0396
 

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