One of the more glorious aspects of being a PDXWildlife intern is that you get to work with a lot of panda poop. With a backlog of two chest freezers to get through, I’m certain that we will be running the generously donated freeze dryer on a 24 hour, non-stop basis for the next few months trying to play catch-up. Some institutions have access to gigantic, walk-in style freeze dryers. Not us. We like to get a little more personal with our fecal samples, running a maximum of 12 at a time.

With Steph, Zach & Zack hammering away and getting us up to speed and organized, I’m hopeful that we will be able to get back on track before the next round of fecal collection begins in February.  As we roll into next breeding season, we begin to collect samples on a regular basis. With roughly 20-30 males at the base during that time, the freezers reach capacity very quickly as we collect 5-7 samples every week for 4 weeks. This is one of the reasons we pushed so hard to get our own freeze dryer- As it is a huge space saver, bringing a baseball sized sample down to half a teaspoon.

By the end of this three year hormone study, we expect to have reduced 1500lbs. of panda feces into about 15lbs. Much easier to store and transport. To put this another way- What would have taken a flat-bed truck, can now be delivered by person using a medium sized portable cooler. For this ability, we owe our followers a huge debt of gratitude.

***For those of you who have any specific requests, or would like me to grab a couple of photos of bears currently here at Bifengxia, send me a request in the comments section. I’ll be here until mid December.

Now, back to preparing poop-