Zoo poo used to find repellent
It’s a stench that enters your nostrils and clings to your nose hairs: chunks of lion, baboon and dog poo, which is then steamed and liquefied.
But it’s a stench that could save lives.
University of Waikato Master’s student Melissa Collins is the brains behind research that could stop dogs from eating rat bait.
The research was prompted by studies on nontoxic repellents to protect kea from aerial drops of 1080, which caused high death rates.
After chatting with her supervisors, Collins decided to research a natural repellent to deter dogs from rat poison.
‘‘Mum is a vet nurse and has seen a few dogs who have died [from eating rat bait] and it’s not nice.’’
The 22-year-old biological sciences student initially thought about using dog poo, but after more research discovered about 15 per cent of dogs eat their own faeces.
‘‘So we thought about the predator/prey relationship and we know that domestic dogs don’t have predators.
‘‘But when you look at African wild dogs or hyenas, they’re predated upon by lions and tigers, so we thought we’d use their poo.
‘‘Oh, and we threw baboons in there just for a random one.’’
Auckland Zoo provided Collins with the majority of the exotic faeces to test – 5kg from each animal. And luckily, she didn’t have to shovel it herself. The zoo packaged and froze it, ready for her to pick up and take back to the University of Waikato.
The 5kg of dog poo for her research came from an animal lodge. The study has been approved by the University of Waikato’s Animal Ethics Committee. No poisons are involved and before the zoo poo is used, it’s sterilised using steam – conditions set by the Ministry for Primary Industries.
‘‘Once it’s released by MPI, I bring it back to the lab and mix it and all the chunks get removed until they’re in a solution and then I bring it down to the animal house and I present it to the dogs.’’
Collins mixes 40 grams of poo liquid with 100 millilitres of water and places the mixture in a large bowl.
A small bowl with dog food sits inside the large bowl, and mesh netting sits between the small and the large bowl so the dogs never come into contact with the liquefied poo – but they can smell it. For the first session, Collins presents the dogs with two bowls with water around the outside, and that acts as a control. They then get presented with one repellent-treated bowl and one control bowl for another five sessions.
‘‘Based off my pilot study results, dogs don’t like the [smell of the] dog poo – but they do like baboon, which is interesting.
‘‘So dog poo definitely has the most effective repellent [factor] so far.’’
Collins said the ‘‘gold standard’’ for the end of her research would be a repellent that can be directly used on rat bait. But if she’s not able to finish the research, she hopes to pass the project on to another master’s student to continue.
‘‘I haven’t tried it on the actual dog biscuits – again, that would need another master’s student and more research. But essentially I’d want it to be on the bait,’’ she said. Collins is looking for more doggy participants for her research. She can be contacted at missycollins816@gmail.com
‘‘Dogs don’t like the [smell of the] dog poo – but they do like baboon, which is interesting.’’
Melissa Collins