THE dog鈥檚 keen sense of smell has often proved handy to humans, helping them to track down drugs, explosives, and even dead bodies. Now an American game warden has come up with a new job for the canine nose 鈥� sniffing out illegal catches of fish.
Roger Guay, who patrols 2000 square kilometres of wilderness in Maine, trained his dog Reba to track fish so that he could catch anglers intent on breaking the law. 鈥淚 have a real problem with fishermen exceeding their limit and hiding fish,鈥� he says. 鈥淚鈥檒l see them hide their fish in the woods and I鈥檒l spend the rest of the day kicking over stumps and whatnot trying to find the fish. One day it came upon me that if I could train a dog to do this it would really save me a lot of time.鈥�
Reba was the result. When she is given the 鈥淔ish鈥� command, the chocolate Labrador will sniff for trout or salmon that are hidden in cars or tossed into the bushes by a poacher who has been disturbed.
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鈥淪he鈥檚 capable of sniffing out a three-inch fish in a motor vehicle just by making a walk around the car鈥� says Guay.
Last autumn, Reba became the first police-certified fish-tracking dog in Maine (or anywhere, as far as Guay knows) after she passed a specially designed test that required her to identify cars with fish inside them.
The dog has already helped to collar some trout poachers, and is expected to be hard at work over the next few months during Maine鈥檚 peak fishing season. If she performs well, Guay and his colleagues may train more fish-trackers in future.