Meet Nessie

What's up dog?

The impact that Nessie has had on the people around us in her working and home capacity is amazing. Prior to Nessie detecting the fox dens on the Adelaide metropolitan and Southern coastlines last year and this year, the morale of the volunteers that were helping to protect the beach nesting shore birds was at an all time low! The volunteers were so down because the birds nests were failing time and time again because of the predation by the foxes on the eggs and the chicks of these tiny vulnerable birds. The Hooded Plover ( shore nesting birds) volunteers were so excited when they were told Nessie was going to be working along the coast detecting the fox dens. Workers had been out to try to find fox dens previously, however they could not locate all the dens, it took many people many, many hours to find the dens, with Nessie out searching, she can cover so many kilometres of coast line so much faster than people can, AND she is able to locate dens that humans just can't find, Nessie is faster, more accurate and able to cover many more kilometres than any human can do!
So many of the Hooded Plover volunteers have met Nessie and they are so thrilled to have her helping to protect some of Australia's endangered and vulnerable shore nesting birds, and it's so easy to see how much of a great impact that Nessie's presence along the coast has helped to lift the morale of the volunteers because Nessie is so brilliant at detecting the Fox dens. She also totally loves her work and all the people she meets and that we are all trying to help our wildlife. Nessie is also a very talented Search and Rescue Mantrailing dog. Nessie can be given an article of clothing or a similar item of a missing persons, she will sniff it , and can then follow the missing persons scent trail of where they have walked along and can help to locate them. She has, in training scenarios, located adults and children of all ages and Nessie has also found lost dogs too. Nessie has made such an impact not only with her conservation work, but in everyday life too, helping people and wildlife in so many ways.

How is this award decided?