Toilet habits and wildlife impacts

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Toilet habits and wildlife impacts

Postby Thornbill » Fri 12 May, 2017 9:02 am

Some interesting research into the impact of the toileting habits of walkers on Tassie Devils, with a potential human-devil parasite transmission.

http://www.themercury.com.au/news/tasmania/human-parasites-may-pose-threat-to-tassie-devils-say-scientists/news-story/1e5960d23c643f1020688a464688f4e6

And here's the original, open access journal paper. Because, when it comes to the media reporting on science, it's always good to see the original source :) http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0174994
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Re: Toilet habits and wildlife impacts

Postby Nuts » Fri 12 May, 2017 2:32 pm

The link is through a paywall. Access by google should bring it up to read (once).
Not that it seems an entirely accurate interpretation, and be good to see a wider framework for poop V wildlife generally.
I suspect, between the omnivores and typical cathole conditions, very little actually stays buried (just observation, no hard data).
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Re: Toilet habits and wildlife impacts

Postby MrWalker » Fri 12 May, 2017 5:49 pm

I find it interesting that the full article is available on line, but the Mercury hides their misleading version behind a paywall.
The study showed no evidence that bushwalkers transmit any parasites to devils. The only human-type parasite was in a captive devil.
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Re: Toilet habits and wildlife impacts

Postby Thornbill » Fri 12 May, 2017 7:15 pm

Hence the link to the original research. From that you can draw your own, properly informed conclusions. Which you can't do from the Mercury article. The potential for introduction/transmission of diseases and parasites from walkers like ourselves is an interesting question though and i'd like to see some more research done on this.
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