Two-year-old labrador works to protect island's endangered inhabitants from deadly threat: 'When he works, he's really focused'
Meet Woody, a fox red labrador with a remarkable mission: protecting endangered puffins and other seabirds on Northern Ireland's Rathlin Island, reported BBC.
This 2-year-old detection dog works alongside the LIFE Raft project team, searching for signs of ferrets and rats threatening the island's beloved bird populations. His specialized skill is sniffing out droppings from predators that eat young birds and eggs.
The project marks a global first in removing ferrets from an island ecosystem. Since the team captured 98 ferrets, none have been spotted for months, though official confirmation of their complete removal has yet to come.
The ferret problem began in the 1980s, when a farmer brought them to control rabbits. But the plan backfired when the ferrets started breeding and targeting seabirds instead.
As RSPB warden Liam McFaul discovered, "It's a bit like a fox in a chicken house, they just want to kill, kill, kill. Somehow a ferret — one ferret — managed to get down on a bank and we came down on a small boat to set some traps to catch it and when we went back in to recover the traps the next day, I picked up the carcasses of 27 dead puffins."
Now, Woody and the team face an even larger task: removing an estimated 10,000 rats from the island. They've placed 7,000 bait stations every 50 meters, including along treacherous cliff faces. The rats take the bait back to their burrows, which stops them from continuing to harm the bird population.
"Woody is a big goof," says his handler, Ulf Keller. "When he works he's really focused and works really well but when he's off work he's a 2-year-old Labrador, full of beans, jumping around." Like any good team member, Woody wears proper safety gear, including goggles to protect his eyes from brambles and thistles.
The project brings hope to Rathlin's 150 residents. Local Marianne Green explained: "Rathlin is a special place, and people still have that belonging to the land. And because we live on an island, we see how things are affected really quickly.
"We know that by getting rid of the ferrets and the rats we will help the local ground nesting birds. They're finding it so tough with everything else that's happening out there so by getting rid of one of the pressures, that means they'll be able to build up their numbers here."
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Looking ahead, the team plans to continue monitoring the island until it can be declared completely free of invasive predators, creating a safe haven for seabirds to thrive.
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