Saturday Science and Today's Must-Read: Poop-Sniffing for Conservation

Interesting post at Hullabaloo on how scat can help conservationists in preserving species:

Let's face it: All dogs like to smell poop. But this dog smells something else, too -- opportunity.

Train, a Chesapeake Bay retriever, sniffs out the scat, or poop, of elusive wild animals like jaguars and oncillas in the name of conservation.

It might sound like an unsavory task, but these scat samples are goldmines for researchers like Train's owner, conservation biologist Karen DeMatteo.

DeMatteo and a research team in Argentina are trying to pinpoint the habitats of endangered animals, but it's hard to figure out where they live if you can't find the animals themselves.

It's pretty interesting. Read the whole thing.