Alice Chung-MacCourbrey

Non Forest Service

Dr. Alice Chung-MacCourbrey holding a bat

My favorite science experience was a research project that allowed me to combine two of my biggest interests, dogs and bats. Dogs have a superb sense of smell that can be used in wildlife research. My dog used to accompany me in the field while I was radiotracking bats to find their tree roosts, and it was clear that she could smell the bats. In summer 2006, I tested my hypothesis that dogs could be used to locate bat roosts and conducted field tests using professionally trained scent detection dogs to locate bat tree roosts (by finding guano piles which are piles of bat poop). The dogs sniff out the guano. When they find the guano, they sit by the tree and are rewarded with a short game of fetch.

Explore More Scientists & Collaborators in Wildlife

Steve Taylor

Research Scientist

Gretchen Baker

Ecologist

Barbara Beasley

Paleontologist

Paul Hamel

Ornithologist

Victoria Saab

Wildlife Biologist

Brian Linkhart

Wildlife Biologist