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What do turtles, scent-trained dogs, and human movement have in common? A School of Kinesiology faculty member in Auburn University’s College of Education is using all three to conduct research. Associate Professor Heidi Kluess is launching a study that will implore dog owners to walk their pets – and collect data on box turtles in Alabama.

In a joint project with the College of Forestry, Wildlife and Environment, Kluess hopes dog owners and their dogs – human-dog citizen science teams – can use their daily walks to find box turtles for forestry researchers to collect data on the number of turtles in the state and their health conditions. While their findings will help researchers to learn more about turtles, the physical activity taking place will assist Kluess in her research on human behavior when walking with dogs.

“We want to study a person’s walking habits when there is a purpose for their exercise,” Kluess said. “We know when people walk with their dogs, they walk more. The idea is they are not only walking with their dog but they are also looking for turtles. So, will they walk more?”

Participants will track physical activity for six months, anywhere they would normally walk, while also collecting data for turtle research by taking photos of the turtles and noting their GPS location. College of Forestry, Wildlife, and Environment Research Assistant Professor Jean Fantle-Lepczyk will use the information to better understand common box turtle population dynamics.

“I am an amateur dog trainer and a conservation biologist by training,” Fantle-Lepczyk said. “This study is a great chance for me to marry my long-held interest in dog training, particularly in scent work, with my professional research interests as the wildlife biologist on the project.”

Kluess explained that the box turtle is not currently on the endangered species list, but could be, and scientists don’t know much about their distribution and where they are located.

“Our ultimate goal is to make this a bigger conservation effort with the turtles,” Kluess said. “One fun thing we will do with the turtles is use artificial intelligence to identify the turtles because they are actually identifiable by their shell. We’re hoping we would get the same turtle submitted more than once.”

Fantle-Lepczyk said one of the challenges in this sort of work is finding the same animals repeatedly to follow their fate. 

“I am interested in learning more about the population dynamics of common box turtles across the southeast, particularly in comparing dynamics between natural and human-dominated landscapes,” Fantle-Lepczyk explained. “This project will provide a novel and innovative way of gathering this information.” 

The initial training for the participating human-dog citizen science teams took place earlier this month, where dogs learned turtle odor and their owners learned about collecting needed data for the project, which is being funded initially by the Association of Professional Dog Trainers.

In approximately three months, the teams will come back for physical fitness testing on the humans and the dogs. They will repeat this again at the six-month mark.

“Most dogs experience the world through their nose so this is just giving them a focus and a purpose when they go on a walk,” Kluess said.