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JAKARTA: With his keen sense of smell, Bailey can often be found smelling passenger suitcases and bags, as well as dozens of trucks passing through a busy ferry port connecting two of Indonesia’s largest islands.
She is sometimes flown to other parts of the vast archipelago nation to help law enforcement officers track down criminals and locate where their assets are hiding.
At least once a week, Bailey finds what she’s looking for and immediately alerts her handler to the odors she’s been trained to track: protected and endangered animals.
“Most of the wildlife that Bailey discovered was alive and trafficked as pets,” Femke den Haas, an Indonesian-based animal rights activist, told CNA.
Den Haas is a co-founder of the Jakarta Animal Aid Network (JAAN), a non-profit organization that cares for Bailey. She said Bailey has also intercepted euthanized protected animals and their products, including stuffed animals, skeletons, as well as ivories and horns that are intended to be collectibles or for the production of Asian medicinal herbs.
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Bailey, a four-year-old cocker spaniel who will soon have a cheerful and playful demeanor, is Indonesia’s first wildlife detection dog.
According to Den Haas, Bailey has so far rescued at least 6,000 live animals and thwarted shipments of countless dead animals after less than three years on the job.
Wildlife detection dog Bailey and her keepers patrol a major ferry port in Indonesia in search of trafficked endangered animals. (Photo courtesy of Jakarta Animal Aid Network)
Bailey has also helped unravel major wildlife trafficking cases in Indonesia, home to hundreds of endemic species and considered one of the world’s hotspots for trafficking in protected and endangered animals.
According to Indonesia’s Ministry of Environment and Forestry, illegal wildlife trafficking costs the country 13 trillion rupees ($ 912 million) in annual losses, excluding the cost of rehabilitating seized animals.
A NATURAL TALENT
Bailey was born to a dog breeder who sold her as a puppy to a family living in the Netherlands. Months later, Bailey became a hyperactive dog who does not like to sit still.
“(Bailey) is not the type of dog that can live in a house. I would jump on the table. She is always busy. She is always active. The family was going crazy. They couldn’t handle it. They wanted to get rid of it, ”Den Haas said.
Indonesia’s first wildlife detection dog, Bailey, during his initial training in the Netherlands in 2018 (Photo courtesy of Jakarta Animal Aid Network)
Around the same time, Den Haas, a Dutch activist who has lived in Indonesia for nearly 20 years, was thinking of ways to stop wildlife trafficking. “I thought detector dogs might be the most effective tool for tracking them. They have been used in Africa to combat poaching and I thought the same techniques could be applied here, ”he said.
Den Haas then approached different institutions about his idea. One institution, Scent Imprint for Dogs (SIFD), which has a training center in Den Haas’ home country, agreed to work with her.
“I never thought of getting a dog from Holland, but when I was in Holland to do a course with (SIFD), there was this dog named Bailey,” he said. “(Bailey’s original owners) had contacted SIFD. They did not want to be relocated to another family because it is more suitable as a working dog than as a pet. “
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Most law enforcement agencies and security companies the institute worked with preferred large, muscular, fierce-looking detector dogs rather than a friendly little cocker spaniel like Bailey.
Yet in Den Haas’s eyes, Bailey was perfect. “We needed a dog that was not a scary German Shepherd. Particularly because (wildlife detection dogs) were something completely new in Indonesia and in Indonesia, some people are afraid of dogs for religious reasons. It’s perfect because it’s not intimidating, it’s small, it’s easy to handle, ”Den Haas said.
“Everything went well at the right time. I stayed in Holland to meet her and train with her. Bailey is very, very nice to everyone. She is a loving dog with a lot of energy and a great drive to work. “
Bailey, the first wildlife detector dog in Indonesia, will soon be four years old. (Photo: Instagram / @ wildlifeaidnetwork)
Bailey was nine months old when she completed her training in the Netherlands in February 2018. At the time, she had been trained to detect anything from endangered primates to exotic birds endemic to Indonesia.
Den Haas then took Bailey to Indonesia, where he spent the next several months acclimating to the climate in the tropical country, as well as meeting and spending time with the Indonesian JAAN team.
DEALING WITH THE MAIN CASES
Bailey worked on her first case in May 2018, just days after her first birthday.
“The Dutch police approached the Indonesian police and us to build a case against this trader in the Netherlands,” Den Haas said.
The Dutch police began investigating the case in 2016 when customs officials intercepted several cargo containers in the Dutch city of Rotterdam filled with collectibles made from protected Indonesian wildlife.
Through years of investigation, the Dutch police learned that the collectibles were smuggled by a Dutchman living in Bali. The man had been smuggling hundreds of protected animals from Indonesia since 2013.
Indonesian police were able to arrest the man and with Bailey’s help raided his home and various art and antique stores where he purchased the wild animals. Art and antique shop owners were also arrested and hundreds of items were confiscated, all made from endangered Indonesian animals.
The case caught the attention of the entire country in both the Netherlands and Indonesia. Police officers from both countries who were involved in the case were praised for their work.
“For us it was very special because Bailey was involved and it was a very important case. We are very proud, ”Den Haas said.
Since then, Bailey had thwarted countless wildlife trafficking cases by smuggling dozens of baby orangutans and gibbons to sell as pets by shipping hundreds of green sea turtles that were meant to be harvested for their shells and meat.
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“Bailey finds animals almost weekly and in large numbers because poachers rarely smuggle animals in small numbers,” Den Haas said.
Bailey now works primarily from an undisclosed location in Sumatra, where much of the primates sold as pets in Java and Bali come from. He also travels across the country to help officials gather evidence against poachers and wildlife traffickers.
PART OF A GROWING FAMILY
Since Bailey, JAAN has trained and employed five other wildlife detector dogs stationed in various areas of the country. JAAN, Den Haas said, is training his seventh dog.
“The mentors (SIFD) also came to Indonesia to continue improving the skills of our coaches and managers. Before COVID-19, they could come every few months. They still monitor us from afar and provide consultations, ”he said.
“We also work with another group. With them, we can run the larger-scale wildlife detection dog unit. “
Animal rights activist Femke den Haas, holding Bailey, posed for a group photo with Jakarta Animal Aid Network’s wildlife detection unit. (Photo courtesy of Jakarta Animal Aid Network)
Den Haas said the other dogs trained and cared for by JAAN live up to Bailey’s examples and reputation. “They are just as good,” he said.
But as the first wildlife detection dog in Indonesia, Bailey will always have a special place in the heart of Den Haas.
“Bailey is our superstar. She is just an amazing character. We are very lucky to have her on the team. She is the hero of the Indonesian wildlife, ”den Haas said.
Read this story in Bahasa Indonesia here.
