The sniffer dog and the leopard
Jackie and Raja are German shepherd sniffer dogs.
They live and work in India.
They’re specially trained to sniff out illegal wildlife products, such as tiger and leopard bone and skin, and bear parts.
Some people hunt animals like tigers and leopards to use their parts for clothes, jewellery or decorations for their homes.
Some people, mostly in south east Asia, believe that using the bones and body parts of animals like tigers, leopards and bears in medicines will cure illnesses.
Because of the demand for parts, hunters can make a lot of money from killing and selling these animals.
But these animals are protected by law, because there aren’t many of them left, so hunting them and selling their parts is illegal.
Last year, Jackie helped catch two poachers (illegal hunters). The poachers had lots of traps with them for catching wild animals. They also had some live birds.
Raja helped find the parts of a leopard that had been killed, and the people that had killed it.
Thanks to Jackie and Raja, several poachers have been arrested, and less people are likely to trade in wildlife products in the future because they are more worried about being sniffed out.
WWF in action:
Download activity sheetsWWF is working with TRAFFIC (an organisation that monitors the illegal trade in wild animals and plants) to make sniffer dogs a more widely used way of finding poachers and wildlife products.
We’ve helped to set up sniffer dog programmes in lots of places, including India, Russia and across Europe and we’re continuing to share our knowledge with many more countries, including China. We’re also doing work with sniffer dogs in the UK, including Tyke who’s now been trained.