These epithelial cells are collected by swabbing the surface of a scat and the DNA within the cells can then be used to tell us a whole bunch of things about the animal that pooped. Scat contents are made of waste materials that can be useful to assess the animal’s diet, but dead epithelial cells that line the gut and slough off on the outer surface of each poop are what we are after for genetics. However, we have been able to successfully genotype scats estimated to be a couple of months old, so we collect any scat that is still looking relatively fresh. The fresher a scat is, the higher the probability that we can successfully genotype the sample. Next, if the scat looks to be on the fresher side, we collect a genetic sample.
Some scats are easy to identify, but others can be quite challenging! Coyote? Bobcat? Wolf? Bear? Cougar? We look at both morphological characteristics – Size? Segmented Pieces? Tapered Ends? – and contents – Hair? Bones? Berries? Grass? – to help us make our determination of which species the scat belongs to. We record the location of the scat with a GPS device and then do our best to identify it to a species level. When we find a scat, we know that an animal was there, in that exact location, at some recent point in time. Or scat, or feces, or excrement, or whatever you want to call it doing poop science is an incredible, non-invasive way of tracking cryptic, wide-ranging species like carnivores. We deploy GPS collars on coyotes and bobcats to track their movements, place remote wildlife cameras on ungulate carcasses to document scavenging behaviors, and to measure population characteristics like density, we pick up a lot of poop.
To study these animals we collect a wide variety of data. The mesopredator portion of the WA Predator-Prey Project focuses on understanding the behaviors and population dynamics of coyotes and bobcats, the predominant middle-sized predators here in Washington.
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