Name: Can Poop Help Protect Rhinos from Poachers?
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The chemicals in rhinoceros feces help the animals communicate with one another. But to scientists and police, rhino scat tells a different story.

To “scatologists,” a pile of fresh scat in the wild is a treasure trove of information.

Can Poop Help Protect Rhinos from Poachers?

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The chemicals in rhinoceros feces help the animals communicate with one another. But to scientists and police, rhino scat tells a different story.

To “scatologists,” a pile of fresh scat in the wild is a treasure trove of information.

Nature

Can Poop Help Protect Rhinos from Poachers?Published: February 17, 2022SCOTT BURNETT: Look at the size of this scat, this is one that was dropped last night. It’s really fresh, sort of, beautiful stuff. If this had of come out of the bottom of my compost heap at home, I’d be really pleased with how well it’s gone. There’s all these really finely masticated and digested plant material, and just by coincidence, there’s a cow pat here, in front of the rhino heap, so you can really get a sense of how massive these animals are. And they’re just roaming in an out of the village here, and everyone seems to be getting along.Just imagine the size of the bum that this dropped out of. These are just a single scats. I’m after the motherlode.I’ve made a pair of tongs out of bamboo, to handle the scat hygienically, and there we go.Coming across fresh scat in the wild is a golden opportunity for a scatologist like me, even if it’s not for my research. Collecting samples for other scientists can help their studies. Some of this rhino poo may even be used to help save the greater one-horned rhinoceros.So, this large pile of scat, here, is a latrine site used by a few different rhinos. They communicate to the other animals in their population via the chemicals in their scats. They communicate social status and reproductive status and who’s in the neighborhood. It’s like a “fecesbook” for rhinos.But this social platform also attracts ruthless killers. A fresh poop pile is a message to poachers that rhinos visit here. They’re killed for their horns, which are smuggled out of the country and used for luxury goods or in traditional medicine, in parts of Asia.Scientists have figured out a way to protect the rhinos, by using their scat for forensics. They collect scat in the wild and extract D.N.A., which goes into a database. When a dead rhino is found, or a rhino horn confiscated from criminals, authorities can match its D.N.A. with D.N.A. in the database, to locate where it came from. The D.N.A. evidence can be used to convict poachers and to know where to concentrate police efforts.In the 1900s, they faced extinction; now there are over 2,600 greater one-horned rhinoceros in Assam.Perhaps this scat will go towards saving one more.Just using my G.P.S. here to get a geolocation for this sample.Latrines helps rhinos communicate, and now they may also help protect these superb pachyderms from extinction. That’s a good poop story.

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