If you read our last post, “Where do River Otters Live?” , you will have learned a little about the history of North American River Otters is Western New York and about the New York State River Otter Project. But how do we know there are still otters in the area?
There was some early research using radio transmitters suggesting that the otters had established themselves after the release. 28 of the otters had been surgically implanted with radio transmitters before being released. Through this research it was concluded that 21 of the 28 were establishing home ranges in the area.
However, after that there was little or no research happening to determine the success of the reintroduction project. So a research group at Rochester Institute of Technology began the process of tracking down the released otters. However, otters can be elusive animals and many members of the group did not ever see an otter through the course of their research!
How did they know otters were there? Scat! Or feces, poop, dung, droppings , etc. Get the picture? We prefer the term scat or spraints. Spraint is another term for otter scat; otters often leave spraints in the same location (latrines) and can be used as a form of communication between otters. No matter what you call it, scat is a very useful tool when researching animals. From scat you can determine the location, diet, health, population density, DNA, etc. For the RIT Group latrine sites were crucial to researching otters. Latrine sites were marked and mapped using GIS allowing research students to use them for a wide range of projects.
I had fully intended on posting a picture of scat into this post but thought maybe that was a little gross! So instead, here is a photo of Admiral the North American River Otter at the Seneca Park Zoo "sprainting" or going to the bathroom. 
Photo by Jeff Gerew
Scat is important in Zoos too! Changes in feces can be one of the first indicators that an animal is ill; ZooKeepers check scat on a daily basis and send samples to the vets very often to further monitor the animals health. Also, Zoo scat can be used as a control for researchers to compare to their samples from wild otters.
So as you can see, scat happens. And that is actually a very good thing!
