Bear Poop at Jasper National Park

If you are looking to combine hiking with some citizen science, Jasper National Park in Canada, is offering an interesting option. The Park is seeking volunteers to help with the first year of a pilot project to sample and analyze the DNA of black and grizzly bears in the park. Samples are taken from bear scat piles found on area hiking trails and sent to biologists for analysis using the Grizzly Scat App developed by the Foothills Research Institute.

Volunteering starts now, and will continue to the first snows in the fall. This requires a good level of physical fitness and ability to hike desired trails in Jasper National Park as well as willingness to hike on assigned trails in order to find desired samples from certain areas of the park. Little or no experience with biology or citizen science projects is needed.  Training for handling bear scat safely and travel in bear country will be provided by Foothills Research Institute and Parks Canada staff. Find all the details at: GoVolunteer.

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