International Fund for Animal Welfare

Fiona Howie is a wildlife veterinary pathologist at Scotland's Rural College.

And Christian Plowman leads the International Fund for Animal Welfare cybercrime work.

An introductory question for you all, if that's OK. Fiona, if you weren't sitting with us in a lovely studio here today, what kind of thing might you be up to?

You'd probably find me in the post-mortem room.

So, I say, sadly, it goes both ways.

Well, this is Rare Earth on BBC Radio 4 and BBC Sounds, your weekly guide to the natural world.

And today we're talking about wildlife crime with Christian Plowman, Programme Manager of Wildlife Cybercrime at the International Fund for Animal Welfare, Neil deCruz, UK Director of the International Animal Welfare Organisation for Paws, and Fiona Howie, Veterinary Pathologist at Scotland's Rural College and winner of a Lifetime Achievement Award at last year's Wildlife Crime Convention.

Big round of applause all round.

So I was lucky enough to get hired by them and stayed with them for about 10 years.

I stayed in conservation, worked for the International Fund for Animal Welfare as their chief financial officer, and then also moved over more into their program area.

And after that, I had the opportunity to work for one of the most wonderful human beings I've ever met by the name of Wangari Mathai, who was the first African woman to be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize.

And I helped run her organization in the United States.

I'm Danielle Kessler.

I am the director of the U.S. Office for the International Fund for Animal Welfare, or IFAW.

Hello, I'm John Rossi.

I'm a touring drummer with a passion for animal conservation.

All right, y'all.

So today we are continuing with our episodes that were recorded at the annual AZA conference.

And this is another very exciting one featuring some wonderful people from both the AZA and IFAW, as you heard in the intro.

And I'm actually going to...

Well, last week my Hero of the Week was a tree and this week it is a dog.

It's a Labrador from Scotland called Skia who won the Animal of the Year award and the prize is given by the International Fund for Animal Welfare to an animal that makes a difference for wildlife.

So Skia has been recognised for her ability to detect sea squirts, which are sometimes known as sea vomit.

and sea vomit slash sea squirts, whatever you want to call them, can be harmful to marine wildlife.

I'll probably mispronounce the name.

It's S-G-I-A-T-H. Skiath? Skyeth gets the honor of the Animal of the Year from the International Fund for Animal Welfare.

They think she's the first pup trained to hunt for this invasive carpet sea squirt, or sea vomit, threatening marine life along the British coast and elsewhere.

Six years old, Black Lab.

She's, yeah, Sea Vomit is a colloquial name for the carpet sea squirt.

October 15th, and you pronounce it Skia, Skia, was crowned the animal of the year by the International Fund for Animal Welfare.

Skia and her handler, a marine ecologist based near Glencoe, Scotland, were recognized for their pioneering work in marine conservation.

Skia believed to be the first dog trained to sniff out the carpet sea squirt, which, if left unchecked on the Scottish coast, can smother native species and colonize infrastructure like oyster farms and fisheries.

There has since been considerable further investment around Kasungu, including GPS monitoring, rapid response teams, and a one hundred and thirty-three kilometer electric fence.

IFAW reports that recorded human-elephant conflict incidents fell from six hundred and ninety in twenty twenty-two to ninety-four in twenty twenty-five.

Kasungu illustrates how quickly something that makes good ecological sense can become a much more complex social and political problem once large animals are actually on the ground.

Elephants bring additional biological complexity.

Basically, though, an advert went out saying wanted a dog who is too much to handle.

That was more or less a job description in Australia, where the International Fund for Animal Welfare has been looking for a new koala rescue dog.

Bear, who was this amazing hero hound credited with saving more than 100 koalas during the Black Summer bushfires, actually retired in March after a decade on the job.

And he was one of the first dogs in the country that was actually trained to sniff out koala fur.

Now, with fire services in Australia warning that the summer could bring even more intense blazes, Oaka's training is being fast-tracked.

To find out more, Katie Chambers spoke to Josie Sherrod.

She is Oceana Head of Programmes at the International Fund for Animal Welfare.

And she explained why Oarka stood out from all the other dogs.