Poop helps to save species

STUDY: DROPPINGS SHOW HEALTH

Animal dung helps to understand stress.

Chester

Ateam of UK-based scientists is collecting rhinoceros droppings for a new conservation initiative to help prevent global extinction of the endangered species.

In a collaboration dubbed “Saving species with faeces”, the team from Chester Zoo and University of Manchester aims to identify causes of poor population growth of Africa’s “mega-herbivores”, including eastern black rhinos, Grevy’s zebras, and Cape mountain zebras.

A major focus for the £1.1 million (R20 million) initiative is the endangered black rhino, a species successfully bred in captivity at Chester Zoo in recent years and whose excrement is a source of useful data to understand the health of the animal.

“Most of the research to assess health and stress involves collecting a lot of poo,” Professor Susanne Shultz from the University of Manchester said.

“We want take these models that have been developed on captive animals and apply it to these wild populations ... and assess its relative health and well-being.”

The team uses hormonal biomarkers present in animal dung to understand stress and reproductive health in wild animals. They say it can be collected without disturbing the animal.

“Through the poo, we can see how stressed the animals are, their individual health, are they reproducing?” Dr Danielle Gilroy, who is leading a project on another endangered species, Grevy’s zebra, said.

“All these different factors ba- sically indicate their fitness.”

Classed as “critically endangered”, there are about 5 400 black rhinos living in eastern and southern Africa, according to the World Wildlife Fund.

The initiative not only hopes to look at the human and environmental impacts on wild populations, but also develop a strategy to promote natural reproduction.

Kenya had a rhino population of 1 258 in 2017, of which 745 are black rhinos, In March, Sudan, the world’s last male northern white rhino, died in Kenya leaving only two females of its subspecies alive in the world. – Reuters