Combining carnivore movements with site visits to investigate predation events can inform investigators of carnivore diets, kill rates, and risk factors for prey. However, detecting remains of prey can be challenging when prey is small or when vegetation conceals prey. Conservation detection dogs (CDDs) have assisted with wildlife surveys to locate objects of conservation interest, often improving detection over human counterparts. We hypothesized that CDDs would improve efficacy for detection of prey remains at kill locations compared to human searchers. We compared the efficacy of CDD teams (1 dog, 1 human handler) and technician teams (2 humans) for locating prey remains at 729 carnivore cluster (potential predation) sites in the Upper Peninsula of Michigan, USA, during May to August of 2015. Carnivore species included gray wolves (Canis lupus), coyotes (C. latrans), bobcats (Lynx rufus), and American black bears (Ursus americanus). Overall, CDD teams identified prey remains at 2.3 times more clusters, required 42% less search time, and handlers traveled 83% less distance per detected prey remain compared to technician teams. Within carnivore species, CDD teams detected small prey remains at a greater rate than technician teams (4.0–4.3 times greater) for all carnivores except for bobcat which had similar detection rate. Detection of large prey remains (e.g., adult ungulates) was similar between CDD teams and technician teams. Our study supports CDDs ability to outperform humans when searching for objects of conservation interest which are visually cryptic but traceable by scent. Where logistics allow, we recommend use of CDDs over human searchers when it is a priority to locate remains of small prey and when vegetation is dense and may obscure even larger prey items. © 2021 The Wildlife Society.

中文翻译：

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保护检测犬提高夏季食肉动物 GPS 集群站点的猎物检测效率

将食肉动物的运动与实地考察相结合以调查捕食事件，可以告知调查人员食肉动物的饮食、死亡率和猎物的危险因素。然而，当猎物很小或植被隐藏猎物时，检测猎物的遗骸可能具有挑战性。保护探测犬 (CDD) 已协助野生动物调查，以定位具有保护意义的对象，通常比人类同行提高探测能力。我们假设，与人类搜索者相比，CDD 会提高在杀戮地点检测猎物遗骸的效率。2015 年 5 月至 8 月期间，我们比较了 CDD 团队（1 只狗，1 名人类处理者）和技术团队（2 人）在美国密歇根州上半岛的 729 个食肉动物群（潜在捕食者）地点定位猎物遗骸的效率. 食肉动物物种包括灰狼（Canis lupus）、土狼（C. latrans）、山猫（Lynx rufus）和美国黑熊（Ursus americanus ））。总体而言，与技术人员团队相比，CDD 团队识别出的猎物剩余集群数量增加了 2.3 倍，所需的搜索时间减少了 42%，并且处理每个检测到的猎物剩余的距离减少了 83%。在食肉动物物种中，除了具有相似检测率的山猫外，CDD 团队检测到所有食肉动物的小型猎物遗骸的比率高于技术人员团队（4.0-4.3 倍）。CDD 团队和技术人员团队对大型猎物遗骸（例如，成年有蹄类动物）的检测相似。我们的研究支持 CDD 在寻找具有保护意义的物体时优于人类的能力，这些物体在视觉上是神秘的，但可以通过气味追踪。在物流允许的情况下，当优先定位小型猎物的遗骸并且植被茂密并且可能掩盖更大的猎物时，我们建议使用 CDD 而不是人类搜索者。