Top detection dog company Wagtail UK have forged a link with a leading Portuguese bio-technology company to pool their expertise.
Flintshire-based Wagtail are the first in the UK to train dogs to find bats – a difficult and vital skill for the windfarm industry and one which has attracted the attention of Bio3, from Almeida, near Lisbon.
The Portuguese company have developed a system for accurately estimating the impact of wind farms on colonies of protected species of bats but first they need to find if bats are dying, no easy task in the wild, often overgrown areas, where windfarms are sited.
In the UK Wagtail have taught their own doggy detective, Twister, a six-year-old springer spaniel, to find the bodies of dead bats.
Bats are thought to be able to avoid the rotors of wind turbines because of their incredible sonar guidance systems but they could be affected by the disruption of the air pressure caused by the blades of the giant turbines.
Some of these blades are more than 40 metres long which adds up to a rotor diameter of more than 80 metres – the length of a football pitch.
Louise Wilson, a director of Wagtail UK and their head of training, said: “We need to establish whether bats are dying at wind farms and Twister can do that. If there are dead bats there Twister will find them.”
Scientists at Bio3 have worked out a mathematical formula to accurately estimate the numbers of bats being killed and have developed it in Portugal where over 20 per cent of electricity is supplied by wind power.
They have used the Portuguese police to train two dogs to find bat carcasses and have found that it is the best way of finding if bats are dying and they are keen to promote and support the innovative work Wagtail are doing in the UK.
Miguel Mascarenhas, of Bio3, said: “Dogs are excellent at finding bat carcasses, much quicker and more efficient than humans – and they are much cheaper too.
“Windfarms can cause problems for protected species of birds as well, wild partridges and eagles in Portugal, and the energy industry needs to know the likely impact on the natural habitat of a windfarm.
“Dogs are the best way and then we can use the numbers found in our equation to work out the effect on local wildlife.”
Miguel and his colleague, Hugo Costa, have visited the UK to explain their methods to the UK energy industry and hope to use their expertise in the UK and elsewhere in Europe – and that’s where Wagtail come in.
“We have been very impressed with what we have seen at Wagtail,” said Hugo: “Their methods and facilities are excellent and we know they can train dogs to find bats or anything else.
“We would be happy to be able to work with them in the UK and elsewhere and to recommend them to the energy industry.”
Wagtail recently trained the UK’s first mice detection dog for the pest control arm of giant property agency Mitie, and Twister, their bat specialist , is a dog Louise has had since he was six months old when he had been abandoned at the side of a road.
With the growth in wind technology Louise, aged 28, originally from Wigan but now living near Chester, sees the use of dogs as the way forward for wildlife surveys.
She said: “Using properly trained dogs is much less invasive and much cheaper than using people, it’s also much quicker and provides more accurate figures and that’s important for windfarm companies and civil engineering firms or for conservation groups.
“Dog searches can also be perfect for surveying on new road builds as bats have also been known to be affected by traffic where the new road crosses areas of bat movement.
“Our methods are endorsed by internationally respected companies like Bio3 and the results may show that bats are not dying or help energy companies put protective measures in place to preserve rare bat colonies.
“Windfarms have to run surveys to show that bats and birds aren’t being killed and Twister is available here in the UK and he’s quicker, cheaper and much more efficient than using people to search for bat carcasses – people can miss them, dogs don’t.”
Louise actually holds a licence to keep bat carcasses which are used to train the dogs and a freezer in her office has a selection of the tiny bodies, in various stages of decomposition, neatly wrapped in plastic.
Wagtail UK was founded by ex-RAF Police dog handler Collin Singer in 2003 and trains dogs for a range of duties including work with the UK Border Agency where they and their Wagtail handlers are on constant duty searching for immigrants at the Channel ports of Northern France.
They also train dogs in drug and explosive detection and have been widely used by police forces in England and Wales but where they have been ground-breaking is in their development of dogs to work in many different areas.
Wagtail have harnessed dogs’ incredible sense of smell in such diverse operations as wildlife protection and in tracking down illegal tobacco.
Louise has twice been out to South Africa to set up a scheme that trains dogs to track down the world’s fastest land animal, the elusive and endangered cheetah, by finding their scats – their poo – and at home Wagtail dogs have been used by Trading Standards Agencies from London to the Midlands to search for contraband cigarettes.
She said: “I studied Animal Behavior and Welfare at Chester University and I have a passionate interest in conservation and I see huge potential for the use of dogs in this field because they are able to find rare animals in a non-invasive way.
“The dogs can be trained to find their scat, carcasses or nests, they don’t bother or upset the animals and it means the scats can be examined so that conservationists know what sort of diet the animals are eating and how healthy they are.”
“At Wagtail we have some amazing ideas and projects running with regard to a conservation dog section here in the UK and we really want to hear from windfarm and construction companies who are interested in using dogs.”
Louise, who joined Wagtail UK six years ago, initially as an unpaid volunteer, has worked with detection dogs on places as diverse as Wembley and the QE2 and has five dogs of her own.
For more information regarding Wagtail UK Ltd and the use of conservation dogs within the UK contact Louise Wilson on [email protected] or [email protected] or go to www.wagtailuk.com
