Sentences with phrase «leopard scat»

«When we started doing genetics on snow leopard feces to try and get at a different question, which was individual identification of snow leopards, we started realizing that a lot of what we picked up and thought was snow leopard scat was not.»

The researchers wanted to look at the problem in a blind fashion, comparing their data sets of what they believed to be snow leopards and what those supposed snow leopards ate with a data set of snow leopard scat that was confirmed through genetic analysis to be from actual snow leopards.

The researchers analyzed 199 suspected snow leopard scat samples collected from two study sites in Tajikistan during the summer of 2012 and 56 scats collected from two study sites in Kyrgyzstan between June and December of 2005.

«We've got this concept of what snow leopard scat looks like and where it can be found, so we think we can go out and collect it.

While studying snow leopard scat is one of the least invasive ways to look at what the animals are eating and gauge their food preferences, according to a new UD study it may not always be the most accurate.

Not exact matches

Dogs can be trained to find almost anything (people, drugs, weapons, poached ivory) but one York University researcher had them detect something a little unusual — the scat of endangered blunt - nosed leopard lizards.

Combined with future work using remote cameras, scat - based DNA analysis and GPS collars, this project could reveal crucial information about how far the snow leopards travel in the area, how they interact within families and how fluctuations in available prey affect the cats.

When we used genetics to pre-screen the scat and find out which ones were actually snow leopard, there were many fewer small mammals in those scats,» said McCarthy, who added that many of the small mammals consumed in the original blind data set were much more associated with red fox.

In order to create effective conservation programs to help protect and conserve populations of endangered snow leopards, whose estimated population is between 4,500 - 7,500 in the wild, University of Delaware researchers are studying their scat to try and understand what the large cats are eating.

«Cat scat: Research examines food habits of snow leopards.»

The snow leopard samples were most often confused with red fox scat, which comprised 39.6 percent of collected samples.

Weiskopf explained that a big problem with collecting and identifying scat in the field is that researchers mostly rely on morphological characteristics such as shape, size or associated signs of snow leopards, and since scat from different species can look similar, this can lead to misrepresented population estimates and errors in reporting what the snow leopards are actually eating.

Overall, only 36.1 percent of collected scats thought to be from snow leopards were confirmed as snow leopard.

, pika and marmot (two small ground mammals that can provide a snow leopard with snacks), scat of a roe deer, sign of weasel and a couple of foxes frolicking in the morning dew.