#scent tracking

Thank you @optimisticgrey and @kt-catt for the tags! I thought that since I'm leaving for vacation after work today, I would just combine these two things into one cuz I'm gonna be busy having FUN!!

Please enjoy some of my absolutely OBSESSED Ascended Astarion >:3

Serving Up: 496 words from the draft of Chapter 19 of my fanfiction Stealing Moonlight

Astarion swept from the sunroom with far less grace than before, the heels of his boots striking sharply against the marble floors as he tore through the adjoining corridor. The servants lingering there scattered almost immediately upon his approach, pressing themselves hurriedly against the walls while he stormed past them without so much as an acknowledging glance in their direction. Every damned hallway was drenched with her scent. Rosehip oils that clung stubbornly to the carved banisters beneath his fingertips. Lemongrass drifting through the stale palace air in maddening little waves that made it feel as though she lingered just beyond the next doorway. Just beyond the next staircase. Just beyond his reach. Always almost. Never there. Only her scent lingering like a taunt. His palace had become infested with her. She coated every surface. Every corridor. Every stretch of marble beneath his feet. He could practically feel the phantom warmth of her skin still lingering against velvet curtains and silk sheets alike. Could almost hear the soft padding of her bare feet as it disappeared down distant hallways whenever he slowed long enough to listen for it. And it was beginning to drive him mad. Astarion descended another staircase with quick, vicious strides, shoving one of his spawn aside when the man failed to move from his path quickly enough. The poor thing stumbled sharply against the wall, clearly startled by his violence, but it was as if the Vampire Ascendant scarcely even noticed. Where was she? His senses stretched desperately through the palace around him, searching for the quick rhythm of her heartbeat amongst his still living staff. Every time he’d thought he caught it, it would vanish again beneath the weight of his servants and mortal guests drifting throughout the manor below. Nothing. Nothing. Nothing. Godsdamnit. The frustration clawed steadily sharper through him with every passing second that she wasn’t in his grasp. And then, all at once, a far uglier thought began to unfurl in his mind. What if she was gone? The thought struck him so suddenly that his steps faltered outright. Gone?! No. Surely not. Not his Rhia. Not his darling little love. But the more rooms he tore through without finding her, the more poisonous that possibility became. What if she had finally come to her senses? What if she had finally remembered exactly what kind of monster he was and slipped away when his attention had been occupied elsewhere? Vanished from his palace like water through open fingers while he sat wasting precious hours entertaining godsdamned nobles and shit-stinking merchants below? He laughed, and the sound of it echoing off of the walls of the empty corridor was not a pleasant thing. It was short. Humorless. The kind of sarcastic laugh one released when they realized their plan had failed. Of course she had left him. Of course she did. The thought turned bitter almost instantly, his jaw locked so hard the ache of it radiated up through his skull.

Scientists use a variety of tools to identify where bats go after they leave their summer roost, in hopes of finding where they hibernate so park scientists can assess their vulnerability to White Nose Syndrome (WNS). WNS is a fungal disease that affects bats during hibernation. It is often displayed as a powdery white substance around infected bats’ muzzles and wings. It has killed millions of bats in the US, up to 99% of some populations. In addition to using acoustic detectors and radio telemetry, scientists are partnering with Rogue Detection Teams to use scent-trained dogs to find bat hibernacula (hibernating roosts) at Mount Rainier National Park.

Rogue Detection Teams has worked in other national parks (including Yosemite and Acadia) and other protected areas around the world. Detection dogs are considered a noninvasive tool to survey for wildlife and the trained dogs, who are fetch obsessed, are only interested in the odors they are taught as a means to play fetch.

Training the dogs involves four steps. First, park scientists collect and dehydrated bat guano (bat feces) as well as tiny clippings of bat fur for scent training. The Rogue Detection Team trainers hide these around the landscape and into rock crevasses, mimicking, from the dog's point of view, where the bat hibernacula typically are (scree slopes, rock outcroppings). The dogs are then introduced to the odor of live captured bats (captures are conducted by NPS personnel). The bats are held by trained professionals, the dogs sniff the bat, and are then rewarded immediately afterward with their ball. Naturally deceased and desiccated bats are utilized to spread their odor on rock formations to simulate swarming activity. The final stage is using a "hot spot", or a location in the wild where there is a known population of the target species, to transition the dogs from introduced odors (which have human odor affiliated with it) to locating a bat odor on their own in the wild.