A 16-month-old Lab is saving turtles one nose-down search at a time

April, a 16-month-old Labrador, can find an Eastern box turtle the size of a fist in miles of Long Island woods, which is a skill most humans will never need and most dogs would happily trade for a sandwich. She is a conservation detection dog, trained to sniff out the endangered turtles so researchers can track and protect a species in decline across New York. Box turtles are slow to mature and easy to miss, tucked under leaves and brush where a person could walk past a hundred of them. April does not walk past. She works the woods nose-down, then sits when she finds one, waiting for her handler to catch up. The turtles, for their part, do not appear especially grateful. They are turtles. They pull in and wait it out. April finds the next one anyway.