Fascinating stuff - Dogs used to "track" Orca crap!

[John Rawlings]

Check out this link on the BBC. It's an extensive study happening right here in the San Juans, but the first I've heard of it is on the British Broadcasting System!

Basically, they are using trained dogs to locate whale feces floating on the surface of the water, collect it, and then analyze it to study the health of the Orca population. Amazing the information that can be gleaned from crap! Fascinating stuff!

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/science-environment-11523469

[seaphilia]

What a good story. Most of the techniques used to study non-human species are invasive. It's really good to hear about non-invasive methods.

And I've never heard anyone be so excited over a bit of fecal matter :-)

[Blaiz]

you should have heard the dinosaur lady squeal over a coprolite on the history channel the other day, seaphilia~

[SeattleYates]

Dogs are pretty amazing - my wife is a dog trainer (with a PhD in clinical psychology), and she was reading to me about how truly amazing their noses are. For example, a dog can dstinguuish 1 teaspoon of sugar in a body of water the size of 2 Olympic size swimming pools. And they can not only tell from your breath what you ate last, but can distinguish each individual ingredient in that food, e.g., if you ate cake, they can tell you consumed eggs, vanilla extract, yeast and so on. I have much greater respect for my three dogs, I can tell you! And I totally agree that it's great if researchers can use that "talent" to help them better understand whales!