Center scientists and colleagues have pioneered the development and application of non-invasive genetic and hormone techniques to rapidly estimate abundance, distribution, physiological stress, and reproductive performance of wildlife over large geographic areas.  We have also applied these methods to wildlife forensics. For further information, please visit our Research and Development page listed below:

Detecting environmental impacts on wildlife is complicated by the tremendous variability that occurs in nature, over space and time, both within and between individuals.  An important means of accommodating this variation is to maximize the number of individuals and the size of the area sampled, along with the information acquired from each individual.  To meet these objectives, we developed methods for acquiring essential biological information from scat (feces).  Scat contains an enormous amount of physiological, genetic and dietary information, and samples persist in the environment over time.  We also develope highly effective means of collecting the scat.  We train dogs to detect scat samples over large remote areas, using methods derived from training narcotics and explosive detection as well as search and rescue dogs.  These dogs have a phenomenal ability to locate scat from multiple target species over large remote areas.  For further information on our conservation canine program, please visit: