{"id":34958,"date":"2025-02-08T08:00:00","date_gmt":"2025-02-08T16:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/community.nrs.com\/duct-tape\/?p=34958"},"modified":"2025-02-17T14:25:22","modified_gmt":"2025-02-17T22:25:22","slug":"the-toilet-paper-diaries-lesson-one-wildlife-observation-its-the-ht","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/community.nrs.com\/duct-tape\/2025\/02\/08\/the-toilet-paper-diaries-lesson-one-wildlife-observation-its-the-ht\/","title":{"rendered":"The Toilet Paper Diaries, Lesson 1: Wildlife Observation: It\u2019s the $h!t"},"content":{"rendered":"

Welcome to the\u00a0Toilet Paper Diaries<\/em><\/strong>, a series of lessons about…poop.<\/strong><\/h2>\n

Your professors are paddlers and their lectures combine their education, experiences, and professional insights, providing practical advice for whitewater enthusiasts.<\/p>\n

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.<\/p>\n

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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\u2019s not a passive act, but an active skill. And a valuable tool to improve when spending time on the water.<\/p>\n

Observing the natural world can be done through sight, smell, sound, touch and\u2014in very exclusive situations (not this one)\u2014maybe even taste. Hearing birds, smelling flowers and blossoms, touching smooth river stones; it\u2019s all part of being “out there.\u201d When it comes to observing mammals, the stealthy approach of a silent boat helps, but even so, we often only see signs<\/em> 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.<\/p>\n

Why Poop?<\/h2>\n

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\u2019s 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.<\/p>\n

Plus, as it turns out, reading poop can help you read the landscapes you travel through safely, with conscious awareness and child-like wonder.<\/p>\n