NRM North and researchers from the Landscape Recovery Foundation are locating the critically endangered leek orchids, including the Graveside Leek Orchid, using Miki, a canine conservation detection dog trained by Canines for Wildlife. Leek orchids only appear above ground for a few short weeks each year making them difficult to locate. Miki can not only find the orchid within the grassland environment, but even locate them when they are dormant underground!
Once mapped, NRM North will be able to protect the leek orchids by controlling grazing and recreational access to priority populations, specialist seed collection and propagation, and translocations to new sites.
With funding from the Australian Government’s Saving Native Species Program and the Natural Heritage Trust, NRM North aims to restore and enhance the biodiversity of threatened ecological communities of the Midlands.
