title: Fish-finding Fido; Can domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) offer a solution for detecting an invasive freshwater catfish (Ameiurus nebulosus)

authors: Little, Lauren Amber

subjects: Scent detection

abstract: Invasive species now dominate many aquatic landscapes in most parts of the world, displacing native plants and animals by disrupting and altering ecosystems. The brown bullhead catfish (Ameiurus nebulosus) has been significantly correlated with regime shifts from macrophyte‐dominated clear water states to de‐vegetated turbid states, population declines of endemic species, and the disruption of food webs in New Zealand lakes. Conventional detection methods (e.g., visual surveys, fyke netting, electrofishing, and eDNA) for catfish are limited by their cost, invasiveness, time- consumption, and potential to be prone to error. Given that scent detection dogs are a well-established tool across a variety of fields, it was hypothesised that domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) may be able to detect the presence of catfish from water samples that have contained these fish. This could provide a new potential biosecurity monitoring tool.
In this study, five pet dogs were trained to operate an automated apparatus that presented water samples for evaluation. Water samples were presented to dogs from aquaria that had previously contained, catfish, goldfish (Carassius auratus), or no fish. Experiment 1 evaluated if dogs could discriminate between samples that had contained catfish or no fish. In Experiment 2, it was evaluated if dogs can discriminate between fish species (i.e., catfish and goldfish), and at what fish biomass concentrations they can do so. Experiment 3 evaluated if dogs could indicate the presence of catfish when samples were presented at two different biomass concentrations in the same session. It was found that dogs were able to correctly identify water that had contained catfish and largely reject water samples that had contained either no fish or goldfish at above 80% accuracy at biomasses equivalent to environmental biomasses of 4.6 x 1,000 kg/ha. Preliminarily investigations of lower detection limit thresholds were investigated in the study. These results suggest further investigation is warranted to confirm the dogs’ ability to detect catfish at biologically relevant concentrations comparable to real-world sample scenarios. However, these findings support the suggestion that dogs may have an important role to play in waterway conservation and management.

text: Fish-finding Fido; Can domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) offer a solution for detecting an invasive freshwater catfish (Ameiurus nebulosus) Invasive species now dominate many aquatic landscapes in most parts of the world, displacing native plants and animals by disrupting and altering ecosystems. The brown bullhead catfish (Ameiurus nebulosus) has been significantly correlated with regime shifts from macrophyte‐dominated clear water states to de‐vegetated turbid states, population declines of endemic species, and the disruption of food webs in New Zealand lakes. Conventional detection methods (e.g., visual surveys, fyke netting, electrofishing, and eDNA) for catfish are limited by their cost, invasiveness, time- consumption, and potential to be prone to error. Given that scent detection dogs are a well-established tool across a variety of fields, it was hypothesised that domestic dogs (Canis familiaris) may be able to detect the presence of catfish from water samples that have contained these fish. This could provide a new potential biosecurity monitoring tool.
In this study, five pet dogs were trained to operate an automated apparatus that presented water samples for evaluation. Water samples were presented to dogs from aquaria that had previously contained, catfish, goldfish (Carassius auratus), or no fish. Experiment 1 evaluated if dogs could discriminate between samples that had contained catfish or no fish. In Experiment 2, it was evaluated if dogs can discriminate between fish species (i.e., catfish and goldfish), and at what fish biomass concentrations they can do so. Experiment 3 evaluated if dogs could indicate the presence of catfish when samples were presented at two different biomass concentrations in the same session. It was found that dogs were able to correctly identify water that had contained catfish and largely reject water samples that had contained either no fish or goldfish at above 80% accuracy at biomasses equivalent to environmental biomasses of 4.6 x 1,000 kg/ha. Preliminarily investigations of lower detection limit thresholds were investigated in the study. These results suggest further investigation is warranted to confirm the dogs’ ability to detect catfish at biologically relevant concentrations comparable to real-world sample scenarios. However, these findings support the suggestion that dogs may have an important role to play in waterway conservation and management.

year: 2020

title: Military operations and the right to life: the uneasy bedfellows

authors: Chevalier-Watts, Juliet

abstract: This article explores the challenges facing the European Court of Human Rights in relation to a High Contracting Party's right to deploy the military as a resull of insurgent or terrorist activity, and the obligations under Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights (the Convention), concerning the right to life, that were imposed on High Contracting Parties as a result of ratifying the Convention. In considering these challenges, this article addresses firstly the ground-breaking case of McCann and Others v United Kingdom, and then focuses on the jurisprudence arising out of right to life cases brought against firstly Turkey and then Russia as a result of military operations, which have been heavily influenced by the case of McCann.

text: Military operations and the right to life: the uneasy bedfellows This article explores the challenges facing the European Court of Human Rights in relation to a High Contracting Party's right to deploy the military as a resull of insurgent or terrorist activity, and the obligations under Article 2 of the European Convention on Human Rights (the Convention), concerning the right to life, that were imposed on High Contracting Parties as a result of ratifying the Convention. In considering these challenges, this article addresses firstly the ground-breaking case of McCann and Others v United Kingdom, and then focuses on the jurisprudence arising out of right to life cases brought against firstly Turkey and then Russia as a result of military operations, which have been heavily influenced by the case of McCann.

year: 2011

title: The use of Māori words in National Science Challenge online discourse

authors: Calude, Andreea S.

subjects: Maori loanwords

abstract: New Zealand English is well-known for its heavy borrowing of words from Māori. This lexical component, unique to New Zealand English alone has been studied intensely over the last 50 years, particularly in newspaper media. Current research suggests the use is still increasing today, primarily in Māori-related contexts. Here, we analyse a surprising and unexpected use of Māori loanwords in science digital discourse (neither genre being previously investigated), where we discover a strong presence of Māori borrowings in National Science Challenge website and Twitter content. Using corpus linguistics methods, we argue that the use of Māori loanwords in this genre functions as a national identity building tool, used by various authors to signal that the ‘challenges’ the country faces are uniquely New Zealand’s ‘challenges’.

text: The use of Māori words in National Science Challenge online discourse New Zealand English is well-known for its heavy borrowing of words from Māori. This lexical component, unique to New Zealand English alone has been studied intensely over the last 50 years, particularly in newspaper media. Current research suggests the use is still increasing today, primarily in Māori-related contexts. Here, we analyse a surprising and unexpected use of Māori loanwords in science digital discourse (neither genre being previously investigated), where we discover a strong presence of Māori borrowings in National Science Challenge website and Twitter content. Using corpus linguistics methods, we argue that the use of Māori loanwords in this genre functions as a national identity building tool, used by various authors to signal that the ‘challenges’ the country faces are uniquely New Zealand’s ‘challenges’.

year: 2019