What a Detection Dog Can Teach Us About Alaska's Island Wolves

About this event

University of Oregon 221 Allen Hall, November 20th, 7:00-8:00 PM—OSU Ecology PhD student Kayla Fratt will give a free public presentation titled “The Scent of Science: What A Detection Dog Can Teach Us About Alaska’s Island Wolves.” Fratt is the co-founder of the nonprofit K-9 Conservationists which connects trained detection dog teams with scientists working in conservation research. With her dogs, she’s worked on studies involving endangered black-footed ferrets, invasive zebra mussels, and bats killed by the spinning turbines on midwestern wind farms.

She and her dogs are currently involved in a project involving Alexander Archipelago wolves in southeast Alaska. “We’re looking at whether wolf populations are different on smaller islands surrounding the archipelago,” she says. “Are there fewer because these islands too small and not sustaining wolves? Or are the wolves persisting at a higher density on these other islands, and able to eat more whales and sea otters and sea lions?”

The findings, which include genotyping for individual wolves, may have implications for Alaska-based environmental organizations hoping to include the Alexander Archipelago wolf on the Endangered Species List.

Fratt competed with one of her dogs on an episode of National Geographic’s Called to the Wild, which followed three human-dog teams as they attempted to survive outdoors in northern Maine’s wilderness. She was also featured in the “Eco-Odorology” episode of the popular science podcast Ologies.