Satellite dishes and remote-control traps: hunt for sausage dog goes hi-tech

Jared Karran is devoting his ingenuity, experience and psychological insight in pursuit of a fugitive unlike any other he has encountered in his police career.

Valerie the miniature dachshund has been missing on Kangaroo Island for more than 500 days. Picture: Facebook

Every night, after a day spent fighting crime, Jared Karran devotes his ingenuity, experience and psychological insight to the pursuit of a fugitive unlike any other he has encountered in his police career: an errant sausage dog called Valerie.

In March, the 15cm-tall miniature dachshund was spotted alive on Kangaroo Island after more than 500 days on the run.

Since then, a search team, led by Mr Karran and his wife, Lisa, has been working round the clock to lure Valerie out of hiding. They have deployed a pungent spread of roast chicken, sardines and her favourite brand of puppy food, laid out in bait boxes and traps monitored by satellite-enabled night-vision cameras.

“The other night we had five possums, two wallabies and a feral cat all in the cage at the same time, so that method went out of the window,” Mr Karran said.

Instead, the couple refocused their efforts on one large dog trap rigged up to a 100m line so it could be activated manually. They baited this trap with Valerie’s old basket, blanket, favourite toy and an old shirt belonging to her owner. Then it was just a case of waiting.

‘‘We’ve been running on very little sleep,” said Mr Karran. “I’ve spent a fair bit of time out in the cold at night waiting for Valerie to arrive so I could pull the string.”

On one level at least, the ploy has been a roaring success: the cameras have shown Valerie returning to the trap several times. but no one happened to be watching on any occasion. She was last spotted on Friday night.

“We’ll see her, and then she’ll go off for a few days,” Mr Karran said. “With every hour that goes by, the chance grows that she’ll be picked off by a passing wedge-tailed eagle or a venomous black tiger snake. It’s been a rollercoaster of emotion.”

The team has narrowed down the search area to a 200sq m plot of land, about 14km from the campsite where Valerie escaped.

Hundreds of man hours have been invested, along with more than $6000 spent on equipment, drawn from the reserves of Kangala Wildlife Rescue, the animal sanctuary Mr Karran and Lisa set up a few years ago.

Valerie with owner Georgia Gardner.

It has been 516 days since Valerie escaped from her pen into dense scrubland while on a camping holiday. Her owners, Georgia Gardner and Josh Fishlock, spent five days scouring the island for the then one-year-old puppy, but had to return home to Albury in NSW empty-handed.

They had begun to lose hope when reports of sightings of a miniature dachshund wearing a pink collar began to come in.

Finally, on March 22, Mr Karran confirmed on social media that Valerie was alive, and a few days later he announced the dog had been spotted on camera for the first time – minus the collar.

Ms Gardner is standing by. “It keeps me up at night a bit, thinking about what she’s going to be like,” she said. “But she keeps coming back to the area where she knows people have been, which is a really good sign for when she finally comes home.”

Wildlife experts believe Valerie has survived on a steady diet of roadkill, while using her small size, speed and intelligence to dodge predators.

Unfortunately, she is putting those same skills to work to evade her human searchers.

Every day after work, Mr Karran, Lisa and another volunteer drive more than 50km to the search area to lay down food to entice Valerie. At times their work has been hampered by high winds, which has wiped out the already poor internet connection and prevented the 4G-enabled cameras from working properly.

The team has overcome this last problem by borrowing a portable Starlink dish; using the satellite technology developed by Elon Musk’s SpaceX, they have now flooded the area with Wi-Fi.

Mr Karran is convinced the stake-out is coming to an end.

“We definitely feel the world is watching,” he said. “This does put the pressure on. We want to provide everyone with a happy ending.”

THE SUNDAY TIMES