Kelly watches Cannon, a Labrador A Nose for Seals retriever, by an exposed breathing hole. Labradors aid scientific research BY MICHAEL ENGELHARD

ITH NOSES 10,000 TIMES SHARPER very coldest of weather, and under most danger- than a human’s, dogs have served to ous circumstances, to hunt for seal-holes.” Sled detect the missing, the dangerous, dogs, Hall observed, surprised seals basking in the unbidden: mountain lions, wild plain view as well. Once trained dogs pick up a Whogs, stowaways, and sprung convicts, and more seal’s odor downwind from it they quarter in a recently, drugs and explosives, victims of murders, zigzag pattern, which narrows, funnel-like, as earthquakes, and avalanches. In 2014, the federal they get closer. government mandated that the energy giant BP Having learned this from an hunter in use trained dogs to avoid impacting seals during Canada, the University of Alaska’s Dr. Brendan ice-road construction and other Beaufort Sea Kelly and associated biologists in 1982 loosed projects. Formerly predators, some canine trackers Labrador retrievers on shore-fast ice between have turned into protectors. Reindeer Island and Prudhoe Bay to study noise “Labs” ferreting out ringed seals for science disturbance from oil development. e dogs have been deployed since 1975, though their snied out dozens of lairs, snow caves that seals husky cousins guided hunters to ippered excavate above breathing holes. Females nap and prey for millennia. nurse there, concealed from polar bears and men. e American publisher Charles Francis Hall, A seal cow has several such pockets and may seeking Sir in 1860-62, admired leave a pup in one while she forages, shielding it

Inuit who “will go, with their dogs, even in the from Arctic foxes, glaucous gulls, and the FISHERIES NOAA CAMERON, MICHAEL COURTESY

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AKMMG_180300_NaturalAK.indd 50 1/10/18 10:15 AM elements. Rutting bulls become rank by Once a retriever Cannon investigates May and the snow at their lairs smelly—a pinpoints a target, it a seal lair in the sea ice near Kotzebue. condition Inupiat call tigak. After work alerts or starts digging. conducted in Kotzebue Sound, in 2006, An avalanche probe DNA from black “dandru ” in old lairs then conrms a nd. In where seals molted allowed Kelly to time, an aglu hoop net identify di erent subpopulations and to is set up in the exposed determine that much interbreeding breathing hole, to trap occurred—ice seal species mating outside a surfacing seal before their subgroup are less vulnerable to it can dive again. extinction. Kelly furthermore investigated Weather conditions the consequences of shrinking sea ice and a ect how often earlier snowmelt upon these pinnipeds. interspecies teams can e team tagged seals with specially search for lairs and developed satellite responders that traced how successful they pelagic migrations and returns to certain are. Strong winds can breeding sites for up to 14 months. With hamper a dog that is Dr. Peter Boveng of the Alaska Fisheries trying to lock into Science Center, Kelly instrumented seals scent plumes and trace also after nding them with an infrared them to their source. camera instead of a canine gumshoe. e window to locate Dogs proved to be much more sensitive, seal pups is short. “If with an 80 to 85 percent success rate in a we didn’t have the search perimeter ve to 10 kilometers dogs,” Kelly says, “we’d wide. Seemingly inexhaustible, they have to wait until late struck pay dirt up to 200 times in a spring to look for caves month, sensing lairs from 500 meters. exposed by melting Kelly, who prefers females for their snow, and we’d miss stamina, conditioned his retrievers by the pupping season.” taking them downwind of visible, basking is specialist dog breed is hardworking tamed-wolf mutt Kotzebue Sound Natives seals and with scraps of skin or blubber. and wise to the ways of the sea, like its (“Malemiut”) and their ule predecessors Later dogs learned by accompanying ancestors, which earned their keep as have bred for 1,000 years; but Labs possess experienced ones, responding to the shermen’s helpmates, hauling nets, and the same high-grade olfactory gear. Here’s handler’s command “natchiq”—Inupiaq fetching ropes and sh from chilly north an analogy to vision: An object a person for Pusa hispida, the “bristly-coated seal.” Atlantic waters. Labradors don’t share the can spot a third of a mile away, a dog could Praised, primed, and eager, dogs sprinted dense, double-coated pelt, thick pads, from more than 3,000. Put another way, ahead of the researchers’ snowmachines, furred paws, and short, frost-resilient ears Pooch catches the whi of one rotten directed by hand signals. of the Malamute—the big-boned, apple hidden in two million barrels. A dog then is two nostrils attached to a A ringed seal brain. e tail merely announces a score. pup in its lair. Noses packed with receptors, split airow paths (for olfaction and respiration), an organ we lack (“Jacobson’s”), and an enlarged brain segment exclusively decoding air clues explain a dog’s feats. Bioengineers now try to replicate this dazzling design. Perhaps some day, robots will replace scientists’ four-legged assistants. eir work, one must assume, will be less entertaining for it.

Michael Engelhard is the author of the essay collection American Wild: Explorations from the Grand Canyon to the Arctic Circle, and of Ice Bear: e Cultural History of an Arctic Icon. He lives in Fairbanks and works as a wilderness guide in the Arctic. COURTESY MICHAEL CAMERON, NOAA FISHERIES NOAA CAMERON, MICHAEL COURTESY

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