The Guy Who Picks Up Poop

This morning we learned that “the guy who picks up poop,” our illustrious leader Chris Newman, is
actually a population ecologist, who works (along with Co-PI Christine Buesching) for the Wildlife Conservation Research Unit at Oxford University in the United Kingdom. Together they have been using scat (the official scientist’s name for poop) as an indirect method to look at the abundance of animals in an area.

Here in Nova Scotia we will be looking at populations of deer, snowshoe hare, raccoons, porcupines, coyotes, skunk, otter, and any other animal whose scat we can find. Tomorrow we’ll be establishing grids in which we’ll place traps to catch small mammals (read mice and voles) to look at their abundance (their scat is harder to find). As RD says, “scat really tells you everything you need to know: who they are, where they are, what they eat, when they were there.” RD also knows a lot about cars (he ran training programs for major automakers) but is quickly becoming a super-pooper-snooper.

The day was a bit grey, but after lunch we set out to do our first Field Sign Transect along the coast at Broad Cove. The fog added a mystical quality to the rocky shore and lichen covered trees. On the way to the cove, we all piled into the project van, even Lycos, the dog. I think he really thought he was a lapdog when he climbed onto Chris’s lap!

Our walk was peaceful and quietly beautiful, as the mist slowly curved through the trees to our left and the waves crashed softly against the rocks to our right. We had only two animal sightings – two muskrats swimming in pools of water. They look like small beavers with vertical, swooshing tails that propel them through the water like a wind-up bath toy.

We also saw our first animals signs. Yep, you guessed it – scat! The porcupine scat was the most interesting to me – I had never seen it before, it looks like any other pelleted herbivore scat, but longer and skinnier.

Here is a picture:

We also saw snowshoe hare scat, which is almost perfectly round, like peas. Coyote and raccoon scat were also prevalent – they were distinguishable by the high hair content and small bones.

Here is the team examining some:

At the end of the 5 mile walk, we headed home and soon tucked into a full dinner of Sheppard’s pie, salad and cabbage. Ice Cream won over watermelon as the dessert of choice.