Urban Naturalists at Nathan Bishop Middle School: Tracks and Scat! What's up with That?

Today, the Urban Naturalists learned how tracks and scat can tell us about the the animals and plants in an ecosystem. In most research situations, scientists don't usually see the animal, rather look for the evidence left behind!

Tracks occur when an animal's footprint gets left behind in their habitat. A great place to look for tracks is around a water source as the ground is usually squishy and wet and animals tend to gather their to drink. Tracks tell us what types of animals have been there, whether there was multiple in a group or a sole animal, and, sometimes, it tells us a story about the animals near the waterhole.

Scat is another word for animal poop! We can learn alot from poop! We can learn about what animals eat in the area, what types of animals are predators and prey, what gender the animal is, whether the animal is sick or healthy, and whether its a small or large animal in the area.

Marks and Evidence are another way to learn about animals in the area. Looking for evidence of nests, burrows, fur shedding, remnants of something being eaten, chew marks or scratch marks on trees or leaves, etc., you can learn about what animals are in the area.

We learned about the tracks and scat of various animals and then investigated a "Critter Scene". We checked out a scene set up around a river bed. The Urban Naturalists were in charge of reading the landscape to see if they could figure out what happened around the river.

Hmmm...what happened here?

The Urban Naturalist decided that the following situations happened at the scene:

Owl: There was an owl that was sitting in a tree, swooped down and grabbed a rabbit, ate the rabbit and expelled a pellet (the undigested bones and fur of an animal) We had evidence of this with an owl pellet, owl feathers and a pile of fur left over from the rabbit

Rabbit: There was a rabbit who visited the river, but did not drink from it. They rabbit appeared to have just disappeared. We then found out it disappeared because it was picked up and carried off by the owl. We figured this out by identifying some rabbit tracks and fake rabbit scat

Deer: A deer came to the river, drank, pooped, and then walked off. We knew this from the left over deer scat and deer tracks

Coyote: A coyote was hiding behind a bush when it spotted a squirrel who had been feasting on some nuts. The coyote bounded out of the bush and attacked the squirrel. The squirrel and coyote appeared to have a bit of a scuffle before the squirrel was killed and eaten. Only the coyote walks away from that scene. This is evident by the coyote poop, coyote tracks, and squirrel tracks.

Squirrel: A squirrel was bounding along until it found some nuts. It ate the nuts and was attacked and killed by a coyote. This is evident from the squirrel tracks and nut shells left over.

Urban Naturalists were brainstorming on what
happened at the scene

After testing out our tracking skills, we tried our hand at identifying what an animal ate. Rather than looking through scat, we checked out owl pellets! Owls have a special adaptation that allows them to eat their prey whole (or in chunks) without chewing. Their body then separates the fur and bones from the meat and they "cast a pellet" - they expel the fur and bones in a small, hard pellet form. These pellets can tell us what animals owls have been eating in an area!

The pellets we dissected were cooked at high temperatures to kill off any bacteria and the Urban Naturalists were able to dissect it to discover what their owls ate!