Sniffer Dogs Search for Sumatran Rhinos in Indonesia
IRF serves as a funder, partner, convener, facilitator and trainer for rhino conservation programs through in-country partners and staff to strengthen local rhino conservation efforts, engage people and protect rhino habitats.
The following blog discusses the effort to determine if Sumatran rhinos still exist in Indonesia’s Way Kambas National Park. The project, undertaken in the summer of 2025, was a partnership between IRF, Working Dogs for Conservation, the Indonesia Ministry of Forestry and Yayasan Badak Indonesia (YABI). The article was written by Renae Counter, canine field specialist for Working Dogs for Conservation.
The jungle is quiet. The only sounds are the team’s footsteps through dense fallen leaves, the chop of a machete clearing the path and the constant ringing of the bell attached to Yagi, a five year-old Labrador retriever on a mission to locate Sumatran rhino scat.
The bell is for me, his handler, to hear when I can’t see his black form among the trees. If the bell is ringing, he’s working. If the ringing stops, I stop and investigate.
The afternoon heat is tempered slightly by the forest shade, but it’s still so humid you might as well be swimming. The search today has been slow. There’s been no sign of Sumatran rhino—no feeding, no footprints and definitely no scat. Yagi is determined though, smelling for any rhino sign.
We come across an open expanse of jungle. The understory is less dense here, with only a few very large trees. One tree recently fell to the forest floor, cutting the open area in half. As he approaches one side, Yagi’s behavior changes. His tail wags faster, his speed picks up and he has the look of a dog that’s onto something. I stop, and the folks behind and in front of me also halt. I watch Yagi work, letting him sort out the area. It’s obvious he smells something but isn’t sure where or what, so I step in to help.
Near the fallen tree, elephant dung sits like large brown gumdrops on the forest floor. I assume the lack of any other scat sign today has drawn Yagi to the dung. “Elephant,” I say, letting the team know there’s no need to investigate further. Zen, one of our guides, pulls up his GPS, orients himself, points his arm forward and we all fall in line behind him.
Except Yagi. He’s now jumped over the fallen tree and is showing another change in behavior. I keep an eye on him while staying with the team. One elephant scat typically means there are more, so I assume he’s just excited for any scat to smell.
Zen leads us to a thicker area of forest. I’m about to enter the vine-tethered patch of trees when I pause and listen to Yagi’s bell tolling behind me. Typically, with a non-target scat, if Yagi saw his human team moving on, he’d fall in line, but he’s still pacing around that open patch, head up, sniffing the air, tail moving in a frantic wag.
I pull away from the team and walk toward Yagi. As I approach, his head shoots down and he sniffs the ground loudly. Then he stops dead in his tracks, spins 180 degrees, pauses and drops into a sit, his way of alerting me that he’s found target odor.
I rush over and find a pile of scat between his front paws—and this time, it’s not from an elephant. The team has gathered at the edge of the dense patch, watching me. I wave them over.
I move Yagi away and offer him water while Zen and the others gather around the scat. There’s a long moment of silence as Zen studies it. He moves one bolus away with his machete, dissecting it. Pieces rest on the blade as he brings it closer to his face for a long inhale. Then he begins speaking to the team in Bahasa.
Arya, the group translator, lets me know what Zen is saying: “He says everything about the scat looks like rhino, from the way the bolus is shaped, the texture and the smell, but it’s too small to be rhino scat. Or if it is from a rhino, it’s from a calf, which means there should be another scat nearby from the mother.”
I tell them I’ll let Yagi search the area more while they collect the scat for DNA sampling. I call Yagi into a heel, unclip his leash and place a hand on his chest. Yagi stares dead ahead as I whisper, “Go find it.” He rockets off, head down. In less than 30 seconds, he’s alerting again, sitting with a much larger scat between his feet, just 10 meters from the last one.
Zen comes over and smiles as he bends down to examine the find. He looks up at me while pointing at the scat, and in English says, “Mom.” Then he looks to Yagi: “Good boy!”
I open my hip pack and pull out a foam dog ball—bright pink and blue to contrast the jungle green—and Yagi’s eyes widen as I confirm, “Yes! Good boy!” I throw the ball into the air for him to catch.
For humans, we do this work because we know a dog’s nose is among our most effective tools for finding evidence of threatened and endangered species. Yagi does it for the love of the ball.
Genetic results are still pending and we’re awaiting the announcement from the Ministry of Forestry after receiving validation from the lab to prove whether the scat is definitively from Sumatran rhinos. Yet, just like Yagi on his search for rhino scat, hope springs eternal—for Way Kambas and for the wild Sumatran rhinos we hope still call the jungle home.
Working Dogs for Conservation and IRF are grateful to the Ministry of Forestry (MOF) for allowing this important project and for MOF’s support of rhino conservation.
