The Scoop on Poop

The Scoop on Poop. Smithsonian's National Zoo. , Since the early days of few resources, there's one thing the Zoo has never been short on, animal waste. That's a good thing! Reproductive and stress hormones found in poop help scientists make important decisions about species' survival and well-being. The same hormones can be found in blood, saliva, urine and even hair. Poop has the advantage of being easy to collect with no distress to the animal., The Zoo also uses non-invasive techniques to analyze DNA from poop in the Genetics Laboratory. Zoo scientists studying these samples can learn an animal's sex, parasite load or territory size, all without ever touching or seeing the animal!, [Captions:] , Stress hormones in clouded leopard feces led Zoo scientists to recommend the tree-living cats' enclosures to be at least eight feet high., Zoo scientists study whooping crane poop to determine why some cranes don't lay eggs., The Zoo was the first to determine how to accurately predict when female elephants are most likely to be fertile through hormones in their waste.