Experts deploy trained canine for crucial mission in nature preserve: 'Trying to be as respectful as possible when we're doing this ... interaction'

A chocolate lab in Wisconsin has a nose for conservation — quite literally sniffing out at-risk species across the state.

Tilia, a trained conservation dog through the Conservation Dogs Collective, recently showed off her sniffing skills for an event at Mequon Nature Preserve to support the protection of the area's endangered turtle species, reported Wisconsin Public Radio.

With a wood turtle named Louise as Tilia's target, the two played an interspecies game of hide-and-seek within an auditorium, with the sniffing seeker sitting down next to her reptile friend when she homed in on her location.

"She does not pick up the turtle in her mouth. She does not paw at the turtle. She does not nudge the turtle," Laura Holder, owner of Conservation Dogs Collective, explained at the event. "So, we're trying to be as respectful as possible when we're doing this cospecies interaction."

Dogs like Tilia are used all over the world to monitor endangered species populations and cull invasive species in local ecosystems.

Their detection skills can be up to 40 times more efficient than people's, thanks to their 200 million olfactory sensors compared to the average human's mere five million, as Cory Gritzmacher, director of operations at Mequon Nature Preserve, told Wisconsin Life.

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Tilia is trained to track five scents, and Louise — her wood turtle muse — was brought in on loan from the Wehr Nature Center specifically to train the conservation dog in tracking this threatened species.

Protecting native wildlife is a crucial component in preserving a local ecosystem, as their absence can have a ripple effect that can impact not only other species in the area but also the general well-being of the habitat as a whole.

Using canines as tools in these efforts can help conservationists keep tabs on endangered species in the area, marking movement within the habitat, nesting habits, and more biological markers.

Tilia's summer will include doing just that for the wood turtle population of Green Bay, said Gritzmacher, who is also her handler. And as her sniffing skills continue to grow, she'll soon be joined by a second conservation dog in training named Timber.