India expands its wildlife sniffer dog force with 14 newly trained 'Super Sniffers'

New Delhi, Nov 23: India's wildlife sniffer dogs force has expanded with the induction of 14 young dogs, popularly known as 'Super Sniffers', in the squad.

The latest unit of wildlife sniffer dogs passed out from the Basic Training Centre Indo-Tibetan Border Police Force (BTC-ITBP) camp in Panchkula, Haryana, and is the ninth batch to be trained since the launch of TRAFFIC and WWF-India's pioneering wildlife sniffer dog training programme in 2008, a WWF India press release said.

To date, 88 wildlife sniffer dog squads have been trained.

The dogs were taught to detect tiger and leopard skin, elephant tusk, skin, and antlers of spotted deer and sambar at the training institute. The dog handlers also learned how to train their dogs to identify other scents, allowing them to develop skills after the course ended.

Director, BTC-ITBP, Panchkula Haryana continued: "The training was scientifically conducted using modern conditioning techniques, including positive reinforcement through food and play rewards. The dogs were exposed to various real-life search scenarios in both populated and forest areas. I am fully confident that the newly trained wildlife dog squads will substantially help officials curbing the illegal wildlife trade."

During the seven months at BTC-ITBP camp, activities included rugged terrain training such as forests, check posts, during luggage search, parking lots, vehicles. The trainers used small-sized wildlife articles to accustom the dogs to find targets with low scent concentration in these complex environments.

Dr Saket Badola, Head of TRAFFIC's India Office, said, "The sniffer dogs trained under the programme are working relentlessly in tough terrains and have so far assisted the agencies in over 400 wildlife crime cases. The response from the forest departments to deploy and use Super Sniffers to control wildlife crime has been overwhelming."

He continued: "It is further heartening to see that other agencies such as the Railway Protection Force and Customs are interested in deploying wildlife sniffer dogs. We are hopeful that in the coming years, wildlife sniffer dogs will be used by even more enforcement agencies, who are mandated to protect and conserve India's wildlife."