Welcome to the Toilet Paper Diaries, a series of lessons about…poop.
Your professors are paddlers and their lectures combine their education, experiences, and professional insights, providing practical advice for whitewater enthusiasts.
These lessons cover three essential feces-focused skills: minimizing environmental impact (water management), connecting with nature (identifying wildlife through scat), and staying safe and healthy (understanding water treatment). All foster a better understanding of aquatic ecosystems where paddlers play, strategies to stay healthy on the water, and mitigating negative impacts on nature.
As paddlers, we are given a unique perspective of the world. We can travel silently, cover large distances and move with efficiency and speed. We can drift through aquatic ecosystems of both salt and freshwater, and we get to observe and explore terrestrial ecosystems while camping, portaging or walking to and from the put-in and take-out. Observing means slowing down. It’s not a passive act, but an active skill. And a valuable tool to improve when spending time on the water.
Observing the natural world can be done through sight, smell, sound, touch and—in very exclusive situations (not this one)—maybe even taste. Hearing birds, smelling flowers and blossoms, touching smooth river stones; it’s all part of being “out there.” When it comes to observing mammals, the stealthy approach of a silent boat helps, but even so, we often only see signs of mammals. By examining what they leave behind, we get clues about who resides there, what their diet is, and often their territory or range as well.
Why Poop?
Poop. Medical doctors call it feces. Biologists call it scats. Kayakers call it sh*t. Dr. Erin Clancey calls it fascinating. Whatever you call it, poop is generally something we avoid, but in the backcountry it’s a source of information about what wild animals were there before us. And what they ate. What better medium to refine your observation skills than looking closely at (and maybe poking with a stick) a substance that is the product of natural bodily functions, and which is found in every ecosystem.
Plus, as it turns out, reading poop can help you read the landscapes you travel through safely, with conscious awareness and child-like wonder.
Meet the Professor | Erin Clancey
Meet Erin Clancey. She earned a Ph.D. in Biology, which required spending years collecting poop on the plains of western Montana while studying Pronghorn social behavior. She may not be a gastroenterologist (expert in digestive health, stomach, intestines, bowels etc.) or a scatologost (a biologist who specializes in the study of feces), but she’s into poop – just ask her friends. And she’s going to teach you how to read fecal matter in order to stay safe and explore with minimal impact on wildlife.
“I’m a paddler who loves wilderness and rivers,” says Dr. Erin, who has completed her undergrad studies focused on songbird research and her Masters on Statistics. Since completing her PhD in 2012 she has been on three long-distance arctic paddling trips – animal observation at its finest – in a land where humans are not on top of the food chain.
“Clancey,” as her friends call her, lives in two worlds: “I spend a lot of time in the wilderness both on and off the river. And then, I am a biologist, so I spend a lot of time observing the natural world, especially animal behavior.” Erin has also completed a post-doctoral fellowship in animal genomics, taught courses in animal behavior at Washington State University and the University of Idaho, and is now currently a research assistant professor in the School of Global Health at Washington State University.
Erin’s official title is Quantitative Biologist, with a background is in animal behavior and evolutionary biology. “Currently, I work on the ecology of infectious disease at the wildlife-livestock-human interface using statistical and mathematical modeling.” She recently returned from Kenya, where she was visiting traditional communities to research their risks of the bacterial disease of brucellosis, which is contracted from livestock.
When she’s not in the lab or roaming the arctic with her husband Scott, she’s exploring her home rivers in Idaho. “Everyone thinks that because I live in Idaho, the North Fork is my home run,” says Erin. “But it’s not! The Potlach River is the closest—it’s only 20 minutes away.” Fortunately, Erin likes combining big water with big tracts of wilderness. “I’m kind of always wilderness boating since the Potlach requires a two-mile hike out at the end of the run.”
Wilderness paddling has become her calling, but her freestyle background shines through in her approach to paddling. “There are two different aspects to paddling that I focus on. One is expedition paddling, and the other is (honing) technique. Tech skills and expedition skills. We have a certain style here in Idaho– I would describe it as sendy and brutish. But I come from a freestyle background and still really like freestyle and get out when I can. It’s only two hours to the Lochsa, the Southfork of the Clearwater or surf the waves on the Salmon.”
Even though her career focus has, she uses her vast knowledge of animal behavior often – both at home in the wilds of Idaho as well as on expeditions. “How animals behave with each other and the environment will always be part of the research I pursue,” she says. “Thinking about how animals behave is always a part of my job and always will be – even though lately the focus has shifted (towards infectious disease).”
LESSON 1 | The Skill: Observation
Identifying an animal by what it left behind is a useful skill for picking a campsite, for understanding animals, and for exploration.
Why is Erin a poo expert? “I have a reputation for talking about poop…I guess I’m quite comfortable talking about it. And I collected poop as part of my PhD dissertation. I wanted to know social behaviors related to stress levels of female pronghorn in Montana. Basically, what are the costs and benefits of being a dominant female (in the herd). Pronghorn establish and maintain a social hierarchy and I wanted to know if that translates into different stress levels.”
To test this, Erin measured glucocorticoids, a steroid hormone released during stress, from fecal samples. “This requires identifying the individual female pronghorn (by markings and ear tags), watching her, then going to get her poop!” Erin has also relied on observation and scatology while on paddling trips, reading the land and knowing what ‘roommates’ she and her husband could expect.
LESSON 2 | Skill Application: How to Identify Animals Based on Poop.
“The way you ID birds and mammals is quite different. Birds are identified by sound and sight but mammals are often much harder to see – they don’t want to be seen which makes it so exciting to see one. More often than seeing the animal, you usually see tracks or scats or find bones. And this is useful info.”
Steps to Identify Scats
Every animal poops, but all our poop looks a little different. For the observant paddler, this can translate to a wealth of information. Per Dr. Erin, a few things to look out for include:
Shape: “If it’s pellets, that’s an herbivore – big pellets mean a bigger herbivore like a deer, elk or moose.” Smaller pellets could be sheep or goats. Smaller still might be rabbit or opossum. And really small is a rat or mouse.
Contents: “If it’s not pellets, if it’s a real turd, then it’s a carnivore. For a proper turd, we then look at the size, home much animal fur is in there.” Carnivores like coyotes and wolves will eat small bones and fur. If they eat a lot of bones the scat will be chalky. “And if it’s something in between or a pile – especially a pile with seeds or a grainy texture – then it’s an omnivore. If it’s a bigger-than-human-sized pile, then it’s a bear.
Freshness: This can be useful when selecting a camp spot. However, a dry turd doesn’t guarantee the animal has moved on. “Determining how old as scat is, is weather dependent. If it’s fresh it will still be wet – as long as it’s not raining.” Pay attention to if it’s dried out or breaking down with time and how well formed it is. For predator feces, the older, the whiter.
Other Signs: Pay attention to other clues like tracks, tree markings or wallowing/bathing pools. And a friendly reminder from Dr.Erin … “Don’t touch or taste wildlife scats. Use a stick to poke around.”
Basic observation and identification skills become really important when deciding where to set up camp, hang food, or place your tent. “Scat on an obvious trail usually means that animals might frequently travel through a specific area,” says Erin.
“If you are camping on or near an animal highway and don’t want to have a visitor at night, think about finding another place to camp or at least putting your tent somewhere away from the main line of travel. My husband and I made this mistake in northern Canada. We were awakened by a grizzly bear walking straight into our tent and growling at us in the middle of the night.”
The Quick and Dirty on Scats (a non-exhaustive list)
Dr. Erin’s “need to know” for fast on-the-go identification and peace of mind.
Carnivores
Coyote: Scats are often found in the middle of the trail as a form of territorial communication with other coyotes; tubular with tapered ends; more than one inch in diameter; sometimes rope-like in summer or with bones and fur in winter.
Cougar: Segmented and rounded with mostly blunt end, sometimes pointy; looks like curved cords or round balls; 5-15 inches long; color varies depending on meal but usually grayish-white, brown or black; may contain fur, bones and grass.
Wolf: Often tapered at the end or cord-like; may contain hair and bone fragments; ranges from 0.5 to 1.5 inches diameter, but usually greater than an inch; generally, tapers to a point at one end; think giant dog turd.
Omnivores
Bear: Large, dark, grainy pile or heap with lots of seeds; 1/2-1 pound of matter; could be moist and tubular depending on diet.
Raccoon: Ranges from black to reddish to bleached to white; often granular-looking, segmented, tube-shaped, and 2 to 3 inches long; breaks easily when disturbed; resembles dog poop but with more undigested food, like seeds and hair; sometimes condensed in raccoon “latrines”.
Ungulates (hooved animals)
Deer: Dry, oval-shaped pellet; about the size of a Raisinette; ½ to ⅝ inches in diameter; usually dark brown or black and scattered in piles.
Wild Sheep: Small dry pellet; similar to deer scat but distinguishable by cylindrical shape and dimpled or rounded end.
Mountain goat: Also similar to deer and sheep but smaller, and with distinct pointed end; may be dry pellets or clustered mass of soft pellets.
Elk: Larger in size than deer, sheep and goat at 1-1.5 cm in diameter; more rounded than moose; very aromatic; like a large chocolate-covered peanut.
Moose: Hard pellet; significantly larger than other ungulates; more oblong in shape; 1.5-2 cm in diameter; like a chocolate-covered almond.
MUSTELIDS (carnivorous mammals, including weasels, badgers, otters, martens, and wolverines)
Otters: Difficult to find as otters mostly defecate in the water; scats on land are generally black, tubular and tapered and don’t have much undigested material; can also be watery and very smelly.
Weasels and Martens: Smaller scat, 1-2 inches long; often greasy with long pointy end; strategically placed on top of rocks, stumps or in the middle of the trail.
Special Note: Birds of prey like owls and hawks will regurgitate a pellet or ‘casting’ of the undigested bone, fur, feathers, teeth, beaks. This is not a scat. It comes out the opposite end of the animal and is much drier than a scat, with long tapered ends.
LESSON HOMEWORK
Getting serious about scats? Erin suggests getting a field guide or a natural history guide like Sibley or Peterson. They will provide more details and a more inclusive list of species as well as photos.
Some homework to practice your new skill:
- Keep an eye out. When portaging, setting up camp, getting to and from the river.
- Pause and poke. When you find something, take some time to inspect, to observe and to learn. Grab a stick and poke around. Based on what you find, try and ID the animal. Take a guess if you need to.
3. Look for other signs that will help you – like footprints, tree markings, or fur caught on fences or branches.
4. Take a picture and verify. When you get off the water, open the computer, grab a book or get an app to try to dial in your deduction. WhoPoo app is scat-specific and includes detailed descriptions and scat photos for each animal. Mammal Mapper includes additional info like footprints and other field signs.
LESSON SUMMARY
How can paddlers become more observant? “Just take the time to look around! You aren’t going to see anything if you don’t look.”
Knowing where to look for signs of animals can increase your chances of seeing them. “This past spring when I was on a Marsh-Middle-Main trip we saw wolf scats along the trail paralleling the river. While paddling late into the evening, we saw a wolf walking the trail where it crossed a steep talus slope on a swift banking right turn in the river. It was hard to see with the gray backdrop of the granite and I would not have spotted it if I had not been really looking.”
While our focus is often on the water in front of us, observing the wild world from the seat of a canoe, kayak or SUP is a privilege and provides paddlers with unique opportunities to see wildlife that non-boaters may never experience. The skill of observation isn’t only reserved for scouting lines through whitewater or finding that hidden portage. It can enhance your outdoor experience and give you a better understanding and closer connection to the ecosystems you move through with a paddle. But like all good skills, they take time and intention to improve – to appreciate and to utilize.
Observation requires sharpening your skills to see, hear or smell a wild animal and reading turds on the trail is a unique way to do so. But take Erin’s word for it… avoid employing taste in this case.
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Additional Sources
https://www.fieldandstream.com/story/survival/hunters-guide-to-animal-poop/