Dogs have over 300 million olfactory receptors, 60 times the measly five million of the average human. They can detect even the faintest scents, with precise direction. With this keen sense of smell, detector dog teams throughout California are deployed daily to identify fruits, flowers, soil and unprocessed agricultural materials that cross our borders.
A single dog can clear up to 8,000 parcels a day in shipping terminals and other ports of entry to prevent the introduction of pests and diseases that could harm California’s valuable agricultural system and the farming community.
The Western Growers team recently made a visit to Sacramento to learn more about how the California Department of Food and Agriculture (CDFA) is working to exclude pests from California and protect our local agriculture. We took this opportunity to interview Kernul, an eight year-old, 62-pound chocolate lab, and his handler Michelle King.
Kernul is easily the most handsome government official we’ve ever met. He was adopted from an animal shelter in 2018 and now works full time for the CDFA and Sacramento County, sniffing incoming packages at regional mail partners in Sacramento. Finding and training detector dogs is no easy task, yet Kernul had all the right attributes needed for a good detector dog: even temperament, solid work ethic, physical soundness and the utmost love of treats. Jackpot.
According to United States Department of Agriculture (USDA) – Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS), invasive insects and plant diseases cost the U.S. an estimated $40 billion each year. The UC Riverside Center for Invasive Species Research estimates invasive species cost California more than $6.18 billion per year and can cause farmers to lose entire crops. Over the past few decades, the annual rate of detection of established populations of new species in California has been increasing. Some of this is certainly due to improved efficiency via more sophisticated detection tools, including the detector dogs program. However, increased and globalized travel and commerce has been a major contributor to incoming threats. The Invasive Species Council of California (ISCC) estimates that over 1,700 species have been identified as potential threats to California agriculture, ranging from insects, mammals and even viruses, with countless more yet to be analyzed on the horizon. We only anticipate this issue to become more pressing, and it is critical that we find ways to further protect our farmers.
Enhancements in detection and trapping technology, pest and disease modeling and visualization, and public education will be critical tools to continue the fight against invasive species. Currently, California’s fruit-sniffing dogs are flown to and trained at the USDA National Detector Dog Training Center in Newnan, Georgia. While this training center offers a great opportunity to train and deploy detector dogs, capacity is limited, and the long distance is challenging for the dogs and their handlers. If we want to bolster the local capacity to train and deploy detector dogs in California, a local training center would help strengthen efforts to protect our local agriculture.
We also spoke with Jason Leathers, Environmental Program Manager at the CDFA, who is leading the efforts to eradicate invasive fruit flies and other pests from California. “The majority of non-native invertebrate species established in California are insects. CDFA fruit sniffing dogs are able to detect fruits and insects that cross the border into California, potential vectors for pests and diseases that can cause significant damage to our local agriculture,” said Leathers.
“Insects are highly adaptable with a high reproductive rate and a lot of genetic variability. This gives them the ability to quickly colonize and become a major pest. Exclusion is the best defense.”
Maintaining rigorous biosecurity measures to exclude potentially harmful pests and diseases protects California’s agricultural productivity, economic stability, biodiversity and public health. To learn more about our visit with Kernul and the CDFA, you can listen to this episode on Western Growers’ Voices of the Valley podcast.