I never thought my shoelaces would get stolen.

As a wildlife researcher, I’m used to early alarms and long days out in the field. But one morning, before my team headed out to trap and monitor Tasmanian devils, I woke up to find my boots destroyed and stripped of their laces.

It didn’t take us long to find the culprit. In a trap not far from our campsite sat a cheeky older devil – and her scat that had several inches of shoelace curled up in it.

Scat is the scientific term for wild animal poo. Scat comes in all shapes and sizes, from the cube-like droppings of wombats to the tiny round pellets that rabbits leave behind.

Studying scat may help identify a shoelace thief, but it is also a vital part of species conservation. Let’s unpack why.

While conducting research into the diet of Tasmanian devils, we have spent countless hours searching for scat, in order to pull it apart and study its contents.

Traditionally, researchers find scat by conducting systematic grid searches. This involves setting up transects, a type of narrow path, that stretch across a study area and allow scientists to pick up any scat they see.

More recently, researchers have enlisted the help of scat detection dogs. With their millions of olfactory receptors – the........

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