HONOLULU — Yellow crazy ants are threatening the future of the seabird colony at Johnston Atoll National Wildlife Refuge, within the Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument. The U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service has been working to eradicate the non-native, invasive species from the island since 2009. The agencies two newest recruits, detection dogs Guinness and Solo, just returned from the island with good news – no yellow crazy ants were found in the areas they searched. This is the first time detection dogs are being used to detect yellow crazy ants for wildlife conservation in the U.S.
Johnston Atoll is one of the most isolated atoll formations in the world and is the only safe haven in 547,000 square miles of open ocean for tens of thousands of feeding, nesting, and resting seabirds.
It is home to the largest red-tailed tropic bird colony in the Pacific and fourteen other species of seabirds rely on the Refuge as a safe place, free from predators, to raise their young. Yellow crazy ants spray formic acid that can irritate the skin around the eyes, bill, and feet of seabirds — causing severe injuries ranging from selling to deformities. These injuries can lead to death.
Since the discovery of the ants on the island, nineteen different volunteer groups, known as Crazy Ant Strike Teams, spent six months each on Johnston Atoll controlling and monitoring the invasive species.
This year, the team headed to Johnston Atoll included Guinness and Solo, their handler Kyoko Johnson, and dog handler/assistant trainer Michelle Reynolds. Johnson is a detection dog trainer with Country Canine based out of of O’ahu. She has trained Guinness and Solo to sniff out several species of fauna and flora, including yellow crazy ant.
“Combining human visual surveys and canine olfactory surveys often yields a higher detection rate [for a species] than relying on one of them alone,” said Johnson.
Johnson trained Guinness and Solo to detect the scent of the formic acid and other volatile compounds specific to the yellow crazy ants. In the months before being deployed to the Refuge, Guinness and Solo performed three separate, successful searches for yellow crazy ant on O’ahu.
“The combination of hand searching and use of conservation detection dogs for this project will help determine if the yellow crazy ants are truly eradicated from the Refuge, or if more work needs to be done to exterminate any remaining ants,” said Aisha Rickli-Rahman, Trip Leader and Biological Science Technician with the Pacific Islands Refuges and Monument Office.
Working with the detection dogs on Johnston Atoll, Service employees were able to search most of the territory occupied by yellow crazy ants. The thorough search resulted in no detection of the yellow crazy ant – a huge milestone in the fight to remove the species from the island. This could be the first time yellow crazy ants will have been eradicated on such a large land area in the U.S.
After 14 days searching the island, the detection dogs traveled back to Honolulu with the ship now empty of the volunteer team and supplies that were dropped off at Johnston. Though Guinness’ and Solo’s work is complete for now, the team left behind will spend the next six months searching for yellow crazy ants and restoring habitat.
“Invasive species have detrimental impacts on our iconic Pacific Islands wildlife and places,” said Kate Toniolo, Superintendent, Pacific Remote Islands Marine National Monument. “Hopefully, when the Crazy Ant Strike Team returns in six months, the U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service will be one step closer to declaring Johnston Atoll National Wildlife Refuge free of invasive yellow crazy ants.”
