These Backpack-Wearing Dogs Have an Important Job to Do

Some dogs comfort patients in hospital emergency rooms and students on college campuses. Others sniff out bombs at airports, train stations and stadiums. A handful of pooches are helping scientists track threatened and endangered species, while others have learned how to sleuth out delicious gourmet delicacies. The list of jobs for dogs goes on and on.

Now, some very good boys and girls are being deployed to help rewild an urban nature reserve in England. All they have to do? Walk around while wearing special holey backpacks that are filled with seeds—like modern, four-legged Johnny Appleseeds.

The pilot project is underway at a 25-acre park in Lewes, a small town in East Sussex, England, roughly 50 miles south of London. Situated next to the River Ouse, the protected area includes wet woodlands, ponds, floodplains and reed beds. The Lewes District Council owns and manages the land in partnership with the nonprofit Railway Land Wildlife Trust.

The park gets a lot of foot traffic—from both humans and dogs—which has caused some areas to become degraded. While researching possible solutions, park managers learned about an innovative rewilding project in Chile: After wildfires torched the landscape in 2017, three border collies wearing backpacks filled with seeds were deployed to help restore it.

How dogs can help rewild an urban nature reserve by acting like wolves

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They wondered if something similar might work at the reserve, which is already a popular exercise spot for dog owners and their furry companions. They recruited ten pet dogs, outfitted them with the special backpacks and sent them to a wooded area that had lost most of its ground vegetation, including grasses and wildflowers.

They filled the satchels with the seeds of 23 plants, including foxgloves, bluebells, common spotted orchids and early purple orchids, per the London Times’ Rhys Blakely. They also mixed in some sand to help track where the dogs walked and cut back some of the trees in the area to let in more sunlight.

“We’re really interested in rewilding processes, but they often involve reintroducing big herbivores like bison or wild horses,” says Dylan Walker, who led the project, to the Guardian’s Ellen McNally. “In a smaller urban nature reserve, it’s really hard to do those things. So, to replicate the effect that those animals have on the ecosystem, we aimed to utilize the vast number of dog walkers that are visiting the nature reserve daily.”

As they roamed around, the backpack-wearing dogs mimicked the behavior of wolves, which were hunted to extinction in the United Kingdom in the mid-18th century. Before they disappeared, wolves wandered up to 12 miles each night, snagging random seeds with their fur and dispersing them to new places.

Dogs—like wolves—are well-suited for the task of spreading seeds because, as they “run around sniffing and exploring, they tend to get into nooks and crannies where humans don’t necessarily go,” says Helen Meade, the trust’s chief executive officer, to the Times.

The pups didn’t seem to mind wearing the backpacks, either, though “some dogs did it better than others,” says Steve Lewis, whose dog Crumble participated in the project, to BBC Sussex’s George Carden.

“You could follow the trail where they went,” Lewis adds.

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It’s still early, but already the project seems to be working: Some plants have started sprouting, reports the Times. Because many of the species are perennials, park managers expect to see even more blooms next spring.

And, in the meantime, the project is helping to “engage and teach people about the ecological impacts of wildlife” while also making the area’s ecosystem “richer in the process,” Walker tells the Guardian. It's also helping to change the perception of dogs, as they are "often maligned by nature conservation professionals," Walker writes in a post on LinkedIn.

"Off the lead, they can disturb grazing animals, ground nesting birds and more," he writes. "Still worse, the sight of the dreaded poo bag left in a bush for all to see is a baffling and frustrating calling card. But what if we viewed dogs differently? What if we reimagined dogs as our semi-wild partners working with us to protect species and habitats? Might it be possible to reimagine dogs and their owners as the heroes for nature instead of the villains?"

Sarah Kuta | READ MORE

Sarah Kuta is a writer and editor based in Longmont, Colorado. She covers history, science, travel, food and beverage, sustainability, economics and other topics.