Amelia Earhart died in the year 1937 and since then many types of research have been carried out to know how and where the pilot died. Recently, four dogs that have been trained in forensic were sent in the Pacific island to unearth pieces of evidence to suggest the death site of the pilot.

In order to track the death location of Amelia Earhart, four bone-sniffing dogs were taken to the Pacific island on June 30, in an expedition which was sponsored by the National Geographic Society and The International Group for Historic Aircraft Recovery. According to National Geographic, the Pacific Island was earlier visited by the TIGHAR researchers who have narrowed down their hunt to a region called the Seven Sites. The site was also visited by a British official in 1940 who reported that he found human bones below a tree or ren.

In 2001, a group of searchers excavated a ren tree site where they discovered castaway stuff like a jackknife, zipper pull, glass jar and woman's compact. Also, leftovers of quite a few campfires were found in the region. Andrew McKenna who has been an active member of many TIGHAR expeditions said that extraordinary claims should be supported by extraordinary proof like a DNA or bone. The four border collies dogs that were brought to continue the research were trained particularly in the department of forensics and McKenna is expecting that they will be able to find some proof now.

Fred Noonan disappeared along with Earhart on July 2, 1937, when they were traveling to Howland. Since then efforts have been made to trace their death location. Many hypotheses have been propagated to explain their death and one of the hypotheses of TIGHAR claims that the pair landed during low tide on Nikumaroro's reef.