Spring 2025 23 TONI PROESCHOLDT R E S E AR C H WILDLIFE ECOLOGY “The fact that wolves have diversified their diet in the areas we’re studying suggests more resilience that may help the species persist long-term in the face of environmental change,” Levi says. As a keystone species, wolves play an outsized role in ecosystems, and changes to their diets influence a vast web of species. Fratt’s research will likely provide the first-ever wolf count on these islands, informing decisions on whether they merit protection under the Endangered Species Act. The Alaska Department of Fish and Game needs to know how many wolves live in this area to set regulations for how many wolves can be hunted. Limiting the quota is controversial in Alaskan communities because many hunters view wolves as competition for the deer that fill their freezers, in a state with the second-highest grocery prices in the country. The fall 2025 hunting season could be the first informed by Fratt’s work. Before starting her doctoral studies at Oregon State, Fratt was living out of a Sprinter van with Barley, Niffler and her cat, Norbert, on the long drive down the Pan-American Highway to Patagonia. Along the way, she found out she’d won a prestigious National Science Foundation Graduate Research Fellowship. Instead of heading south, she’d be getting her Ph.D. A former dog trainer who is passionate about conservation biology, Fratt first realized she wanted to spend her life training dogs to sniff out data for ecologists years ago, when she heard about dogs trained to detect Orca feces in Washington. Barley’s been by her side since 2017, when he was adopted from a shelter where he had been surrendered. As Fratt learned when she trained Barley, dogs like him have an insatiable obsession with play and a high drive for fetching toys — qualities that keep them motivated during long workdays but, too often, mean they’re rejected by families for being “too much dog.” Fratt cut her teeth working for a professional conservation detection dog company and co-founded a nonprofit, K9 Conservationists (k9conservationists.org). In 2020, she added Niffler to her pack. She and the dogs have hunted jaguar scat in Guatemala, as well as bird and bat carcasses on wind farms. She hopes to secure funding to expand her research to detect signs of puma recolonization in El Salvador. On a typical day of fieldwork in Alaska, Barley disembarks from a boat, scrambles over wet rocks and then proceeds to comb miles of thickly forested landscape, hopping over downed trees and splashing through muskeg. It’s demanding work for an 11-year-old dog, requiring Fratt to keep Barley on a rigorous regimen of physical therapy, preventative fitness, doggy yoga and rest under the guidance of a sports medicine veterinarian — as well as fluffy dog beds. “Barley is one injury away from retirement,” she says. As a result, this is Barley’s last big project. Then he’ll pass the torch to Niffler. “The worst part of this job is how deep this bond becomes and how much you grow to trust and work fluidly with a dog as your coworker, confidante and best friend, and then how comparatively short their careers and lives ultimately are,” Fratt says. “But I am so grateful for the time we’ve had together. I’m so grateful to routinely have the experience of him teaching me about the world — showing me something like how odor moves, something about the world that we cannot see but know is still true and exists.” ↗ Fratt and Barley with about 800 wolf scat samples ready to be shipped to OSU for genetic analysis. WHILE [BARLEY’S] LIFE’S PURSUIT IS EARNING HIS FAVORITE TOY, HE’S ALSO ADVANCING SCIENCE.
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