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Torrey Rodgers |
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Torrey Rodgers is a Research Associate at Utah State University where he is primarily a wildlife geneticist. Torrey has been working in Panama since 2009, and completed his graduate work as a Fellow at the Smithsonian Tropical Research Institute where he studied ocelots in Central Panama using camera traps and DNA from scat. Currently, Torrey works mostly with environmental DNA or eDNA, DNA found in the environment that can be used to detect threatened and endangered species. Torrey’s recent research in Panama surveying mammals using eDNA from carrion flies was featured in Smithsonian Magazine, and Sierra Club Magazine.
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Stephanny Arroyo Arce and Tigre |
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Stephanny Arroyo Arce is the coordinator of PANTHERA’s Wild Cat Genetics Project in Costa Rica, which includes field work with her scat detection dog, Tigre. She obtained her Bachelor’s degree in Tropical Biology from the National University of Costa Rica. Thereafter she spent several years working in animal conservation and environmental education. In 2013 she completed her Master’s degree at the International Institute for Wildlife Conservation and Management of Costa Rica.
Tigre is a 5-year-old Labrador retriever originally from Oregon, who is named after the jaguar, also known as “tigre” in Costa Rica. Thanks to his personality quirks (boundless reserve of energy, obsessive-compulsive) he was chosen by Working Dogs for Conservation to become a scat detection dog. Tigre has been trained to detect 6 species of wild cats (jaguar, puma, jaguarundi, ocelot, margay and oncilla). Tigre and Stephanny have collected nearly 500 wild cat scats from Central America and have also supported scat collection efforts in Patagonia.
Tigre is a 5-year-old Labrador retriever originally from Oregon, who is named after the jaguar, also known as “tigre” in Costa Rica. Thanks to his personality quirks (boundless reserve of energy, obsessive-compulsive) he was chosen by Working Dogs for Conservation to become a scat detection dog. Tigre has been trained to detect 6 species of wild cats (jaguar, puma, jaguarundi, ocelot, margay and oncilla). Tigre and Stephanny have collected nearly 500 wild cat scats from Central America and have also supported scat collection efforts in Patagonia.
