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Related: About this forumThe plan to save Italy's dying olive trees with dogs
A deadly and hard-to-detect disease has been ravaging the treasured olive trees of southern Italy for 10 years. A highly trained squad of super-sniffer dogs could save them.
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On a sunny winter morning, the dog trainer Mario Fortebraccio slowly bends toward a line of potted olive trees and indicates it with his hand. Waiting for that signal, Paco, a three-year-old white Labrador, rushes through the row of plants with his head tilted, sniffing each pot at the root, the rhythm of his inhaling echoing through the greenhouse. The dog is carefully scouting for something humans can't sense.
"They don't do anything if there is no reward," Fortebraccio tells me with a smile. After a few seconds, having completed his task, Paco returned to the trainer, lifted his leg to urinate on a nearby plant, wagged his tail, and claimed a little crunchy treat.
At Vivai Giuranna, an extensive commercial greenhouse with over one million plants in Parabita, in the southern Italian region of Puglia, Paco is searching for Xylella fastidiosa, a type of bacterium that has been ravaging southern Italy's olive fields for the past decade. Paco and a few other four-legged colleagues make up the highly trained Xylella Detection Dogs team.
"These dogs have got something unique," says Angelo Delle Donne, the head plant health inspector for the government of the province of Lecce, who has been battling Xylella since it was discovered in Puglia in 2013.
A deadly and hard-to-detect disease has been ravaging the treasured olive trees of southern Italy for 10 years. A highly trained squad of super-sniffer dogs could save them.
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https://www.bbc.com/future/article/20230111-the-super-sniffer-dogs-saving-italys-dying-olive-trees
LakeArenal
(29,740 posts)Diamond_Dog
(34,481 posts)The Springer and the Lab
And I can attest they LOVE to sniff EVERYTHING
LakeArenal
(29,740 posts)Diving right in for a good whiff. ♨️♨️
Miguelito Loveless
(4,642 posts)"We were too superficial [in countering Xylella] in the first years," Giuranna says. "There are no more monumental olive trees left."
He wishes controls had been tighter and faster. However, the regional governor President Michele Emiliano was initially sceptical about a link between Xylella and the rapid desiccation of olive trees.
The scientists working on trying to stop the bacteria were put on trial, accused of spreading the bacteria themselves (eventually, all charges were dropped). Italy was investigated by the European Commission for an inadequate response.
Diamond_Dog
(34,481 posts)Thanks for emphasizing that angle.
Effete Snob
(8,387 posts)They once put a bunch of geologists on trial for an earthquake:
https://www.theguardian.com/science/2012/oct/22/scientists-convicted-manslaughter-earthquake
Scientists convicted of manslaughter for failing to warn of earthquake
A court in L'Aquila, Italy, has sentenced defendants to six years in prison despite lack of any reliable way to predict quakes
Barely out of the middle ages.
Everyone loves the quaint country villages of Europe, until the townspeople turn out on witch-burning day.
You know where fascists get a lot of their popular support? Same as in this country.