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After tens of thousands of koalas died in bushfires that swept through Australia, the species now has a glimmer of hope. In a report as part of Call to Earth, CNN sees how innovative tracking methods are being deployed, including using highly trained dogs to locate and monitor koala populations.

By some estimates, koala numbers in Australia have halved in the last 20 years, due to a number of threats including habitat reduction, disease, drought, and fires. 

Jack Nesbitt, who founded Canines for Wildlife with his parents, trains dogs for conservation-related tasks. Bred for hunting, Max the English Springer Spaniel is using his supercharged sense of smell to sniff out koala droppings.

The poop provides a trove of valuable information. Analysis in the lab can tell ecologists if the koala has diseases like chlamydia. Genetic analysis can also show how a koala is related to others around it, and how it’s moving through a habitat. Nesbitt explains, "We’re able to identify individual koalas from their poos. So as the process moves through, and we have their genetic fingerprint, we can identify individual koalas and where we’ve sampled them multiple times." 

The Australian government has committed tens of millions of dollars to create a 315,000-hectare Great Koala National Park. Nesbitt says that groups like city councils use Canines for Wildlife’s data when making planning decisions, "Finding those areas of habitat that are the most important for protection, and being able to identify that with evidence, is probably the most important impact [the dogs] could have."

Stuart Blanch, of WWF-Australia, tells CNN that koala detection methods have evolved in recent decades to get a more accurate estimate of koala occupancy in an area. Once, conservationists relied on methods like listening for koalas or using a spotlight at night to spot shining eyes.

Today, methods like drone monitoring and using dogs for poop detection have become more popular, though those options are more expensive. Dogs detecting droppings have some benefits over drones, Blanch adds. They can detect the presence of a koala after it has moved on, and in places with thick foliage that drones might not be able to see into.

Canines for Wildlife dogs have done work with other species, like the endangered Hastings River mouse, and the organisation is currently training dogs to detect the Kroombit Tinker frog, which is critically endangered.

Although dogs might not seem like natural conservationists, Nesbitt says they’re the perfect tool to have in an ecologist’s toolkit, "Their ability to see the world through their nose, is a sensor that we just don’t have access to in any other way."