2010 - The Year in Scat

"What's in a name? That which we call a rose by any other name would smell as sweet."

The same can be said for poop in a sense. Call it scat, droppings, excrement, dung, feces, manure, guano. It’s still poop. Calling it sweet might be a stretch.

I’m fascinated by animal scat. Absent of the animal, it tells us who passed by, when they passed by and what they ate. It comes in many telling shapes and sizes and sometimes it’s downright artistic. Here are my favorites in descending order.

10) The armadillo is my holy grail of scat – I know they poop. I’ve just never found any.

9) Most of the time I can make an educated guess. Sometimes it remains a mystery. This large pile was found just north of the Everglades. Coarse black hairs suggest a feral pig was eaten. I’m thinking Florida Panther.

8) Scat names can be species specific. If it came from a bat it’s called guano. In most parts of North America it’s easy to differentiate from rodent droppings of the same size. Bats eat insects with chitinous exoskeletons which do not get completely digested when passed in droppings. Under a bright flashlight the insect pieces sparkle.

7) American Black Bears range all throughout North America and as omnivores, have the luxury of feasting on whatever is on the outdoor buffet. A fresh crop of acorns from the Florida oaks have helped fatten up the bears for winter. A large pile of poop adorned with bits of acorn is the tell tail sign.

6) Turkeys enjoy a wide range of foods as well, including acorns and insects. This lovely arrangement of comma shaped droppings has evidence of an abundance of plant matter.

5) Domestic and wild cats have the good grace to cover up their scats with varying results. This bobcat scrapped some grass together to cover a bone and fur amalgam of poop.

4) Manatees are herbivores that feed on up to 100 lbs of vegetation a day. They’re gassy and they poop a lot. Manatees are rare and endangered and the sea is their toilet bowl. Finding a Manatee scat is a treasure.

3) Insects poop too as evidenced by the droppings from this juvenile Eastern Lubber grasshopper.

2) I believe Shakespeare was referring to otter poop when he noted “all that glitters is not gold”. Otters are from the mustelid family and have droppings that range from sweet smelling to rotten fish. They feast primarily on fish and their scat is uniquely filled with sparkling, undigested fish scales.

1) What do you get when you mix American Beauty Berry with a Raccoon? Art. You’re welcome. Happy New Year. 

How To Check A Bear's Prostate

If you have never seen a black bear at the urologist’s waiting to get a prostate exam there are two good reasons why. A) I would imagine most doctors have a “no bears” policy and B) from late summer through fall, American Black Bears (Ursus americanus) in the southeastern United States are feeding heavily on Saw Palmetto (Serenoa repens) berries – a food source that has been shown to have positive medicinal value for men with enlarged prostates.

Saw Palmettos are one of the most common palms in the U.S. and are found in the Gulf states from SW Louisiana to Florida. The shrub-like palm is often overlooked and occasionally confused for a young Sabal Palm. The palmetto has a similar fan-shaped frond but has distinguishing spines along the leaf edge, thus the name. The branching trunk often grows parallel to the ground before reaching skyward but rarely attains heights above seven feet.

The insect-pollinated flowers bloom from April through July and by September, greenish-yellow, olive-like fruits begin to ripen and turn black. They make an excellent food source for deer, bears, raccoons, pigs and gopher tortoises among others. Apparently they don’t taste good. I haven’t tried one but if someone asks me to I will.

The fruits that are not eaten by wildlife, collected by pharmaceutical lackeys or tasted by curious naturalists will fall to the ground where it make take them months to germinate as the endocarp or interior layer of the fruit slowly breaks apart. New growth is slow, but eventually the shrub matures and fruits.

The question remains, do Black Bears that live outside the range of saw palmettos have enlarged prostates? Check to see if the bear has a hard time peeing, which is the first indication of this condition. (Keep in mind that bears go into torpor in the winter and can convert urea to amino acids – the building blocks of proteins). Next get a pair of latex gloves. I haven’t tried this next step and if someone asks me to I won’t.

Low Gear

A few years ago my dad and I sat on a park bench on the boardwalk at the Six Mile Cypress Slough Preserve in Fort Myers, FL. We watched a male Green Anole flaring its dewlap in the hopes of impressing a female. We spotted a Red-bellied Woodpecker excavating a rotting snag where it would soon nest and we watched and listened as a Black Racer slithered between the cypress knees a few feet below. Intermittently people would march down the boardwalk and interrupt the moment. One guest bemoaned to her partner that there was nothing to see and they continued their apparent training for Olympic Speed Walking. Our outing revealed that there is much to see if you slow down, be patient and let the natural world show itself.

The serpentine switchbacks of the Generals Highway in Sequoia National Park trace the alpine edges from 7000 feet down into the valley. It’s over fourteen miles of cliff-edged driving at 20 MPH from the largest living tree on the planet to our hotel and despite the late May snow flurries and a setting sun, we were in no hurry to leave the park. Not everyone appreciated our pace but timely pullouts allowed for us to let the speed racers past so we could enjoy the fresh mountain air, laced with a noxious smell of burning brakes. 

At one stop, a traveler had overshot the pullout and decided to stop in the road to take a photo of the landscape. A parade of cars stacked up behind it and horns began to blare along with shouts of disgust. We stopped. We waited and eventually the line of cars snaked down the mountainside and out of view.

And then the bear stepped out. This beautiful American Black Bear (Ursus americanus) had waited for the traffic to pass before it crossed the road, flat-footed as they do, walked into a meadow and then sat and relaxed. For 45 minutes we watched the bear eat grass, sniff the air and poop (not in the woods).

As I photographed the bear above I heard grunting and snuffling behind me. As I turned I noticed a bear about 15 feet away, digging for grubs to eat. 

Immersed in the moment, I later wondered why most of the humans couldn’t just shift into low gear and enjoy one of the most gorgeous nature drives around. 

Armadillo Poop

Do you have any idea what Armadillo poop looks like? Depending on the species, the age, the size and even the gender of an animal - scat can be varied but there are certain ways to identify who pooped and I'm fairly good at it, but I've never considered Armadillo poop.

A night hike in the western cypress swamps of the Everglades turned up a few interesting piles on Saturday night and a walk across one of the levees that stretches into the Everglades on the east coast from Miami on Monday revealed a few more droppings. Coyotes are making their way into southern Florida and their scat can be identified by the relatively large size of the poop.

This one was about 4 inches long and full of hair and bones. They usually leave it right in the middle of the trail for others to find. Marked with their unique scent - it's essentially a coyote's e-mail - butt mail as it were. That's how they communicate with other coyotes. There are about 400 or so Black Bears in the Big Cypress area of the Everglades (SW corner). They do poop in the woods but also on the trails like this massive pile we found while hiking at night. It probably could have filled my baseball hat. It was full of saw palmetto berries and other vegetation which makes up a good portion of their omnivorous diet.

Otter poop is so unique it gets its own name. They call it spraint and it has a very musky odor. I actually got down on hands and knees to take a whiff, which I don't think is as odd as someone coming up with a word for otter poop. The other easy identifier is the circular bits in the poop. Fish scales. Otters eat crabs and fish for the most part but the fish scales are not digested and get left behind. Fantastic. Another easy way to identify scat is if you actually see it coming out of the animal. Had the Raccoon not just pooped, I might have startled it enough to do so. I was alone on this walk so there is no need to admit that the startled raccoon leaping off the levee into the sawgrass caused any such reaction in me.

This Raccoon scat is full of palmetto and other berries. Nowhere near as much in the pile as the Bear but just as ornate and textured. And then there is the Nine-banded Armadillo. First let me point out that you should pronounce it Arm-uh-dee-yo. Few say it right if you ask me. Next time you go to a Mexican restaurant ask for tor-till-uh chips. You wouldn't. You'd say tor-tee-ya. So say Arm-uh-dee-ya. But I digress.
My hike brought me one and a half miles from pavement where I was the only human being within 3 square miles. Staring down at my GPS - I ambled along and nearly kicked this Armadillo. They have terrible eye sight, horrible hearing and a fairly good sense of smell. When this one was within 2 feet of me - it sniffed the air, snorted and popped a foot in the air before darting off into the scrub. Unlike other Armadillos - the Nine-banded flees as opposed to curling up into a ball.

It surprised me to see it out here. They eat grubs, ants and other insects but this area seemed too desolate of a landscape for the Armadillo to find enough food and yet here it was. I knew there were raccoons and otters out here. I saw their scat. But I hadn't seen any signs of Armadillos and I wondered - "What does Armadillo poop look like?"

Trail of Tears - Trail of Ostriches

My mom always said "you're only disappointed by your expectations". As an Everglades guide, the Seminole Nation to me has always represented perseverance and the 3000 member tribe has always had my respect for their ability to adapt and thrive in the inhospitable Everglades. A trip to the famed "Billie Swamp Safari" on the Big Cypress Indian Reservation (Click for satellite view) chipped away at that notion and I'm left wondering about what is being sold to the public in the middle of the Everglades.

The Seminoles haven't always inhabited this area. They actually descended from several tribes belonging to the Creek Federation of tribes that traditionally lived in the Tennessee, Alabama and Georgia areas. During the early 1800's President Andrew Jackson used the Indian Removal Act, a shameful piece of legislation, to forcibly remove Native Americans from their tribal lands. While many Seminoles were forced to reservations in Oklahoma, hundreds fled into northern Florida where they were pursued by the US Army. Over the course of three Indian Wars (the last ending in 1858) the US Army spent many millions of dollars pursuing and battling Seminoles throughout the state. The US Army ceased hostilities, leaving them to starve in the swamps of the Everglades, with the expectation that the remaining 300 Indians would eventually become extinct.

They didn't. They survived, thrived, were the first tribe to have legal gambling in the US and just recently purchased the Hard Rock Cafes for 964 million dollars, becoming the first indigenous tribe in the world to buy a global corporation.
It's not outlandish to say they have on one hand been wildly successful and on the other hand suffered a culture crash all at once. Which brings me to my latest adventure in the middle of the Everglades. At work I am constantly reminded that the biggest, baddest and most adventurous trip you can take is at Billie Swamp Safari on the Big Cypress Reservation. So, on my trip home from Fort Lauderdale on Monday I drove 25 miles off of Alligator Alley to see what everyone is talking about. Over the course of the many years I have guided in the Everglades, I have created an elaborate Indian village in my head, with Cypress Swamps and Alligators surrounding the Chikee huts the natives live in. I was wrong. Instead I found what looked like a Fort Lauderdale suburb plopped in the middle of the swamp. Normal homes, ATVs and Hummers parked in the driveway. The swamp is not supposed to look like this! To assure the complete destruction of my image, I took my first Swamp Buggy ride. A Swamp Buggy is like a super-sized ATV for 20. It can go through 6 feet of water and mud and so we did, but what we encountered was far from the Everglades experience I expected.Our guide slowed the buggy and exclaimed with faux shock at the sight of a Red Deer from Europe!

I don't know what the heck this is, but it doesn't belong in the Everglades. (edit - It's an Eland - from Africa)

Ok this was amusing. As the guide barked at the bird, it became enraged, causing legs and neck to turn bright red. Ostriches in the Everglades...why! WHY!

I was the only one, or so it would seem, that was annoyed by the guide passing up the native Glossy Ibis for one of the more destructive little beasts in Florida. There were pigs with babies and more babies with pigs and babies and babies and mothers and babies. Pigs everywhere. Just what we need. The people were delighted.

This I can handle. Bison once roamed the plains of Florida. Actually not that long ago. The last Bison was killed in Florida sometime in the mid-1800s. There are 300 of these roaming the mud holes and sloughs of the reservation now.

Oh I guess I can handle this one too. Am I going soft? I mean it is a Water Buffalo. It makes sense to see one of these here even though it's half a world away from home.

Ironically, the caged animal is one of the few natives on display here at Billie Swamp Safari; the Florida Black Bear. It's not dancing because it's happy.

I'm now disenchanted. Where is the true culture of the Seminoles? Where is the true representation of the Everglades! This is what people are spending their money on! This is my competition! And they call this an Eco-tour! ACK!

Of course this is only a part of the reservation. I have yet to visit the Ah-Tah-Thi-Ki Museum. Soon enough.

Not a very funny blog today. Hope you weren't disappointed. But what did you expect?

Maddogs and Englishmen

As Bill said to me afterwords, "Only maddogs and Englishmen go out in the midday sun" and yet there I was on Sunday, 95 degrees and relatively high humidity and I'm trekking through the wilderness of the Fakahatchee Strand State Park in search of alligator babies.

The jungle! (click for larger view)

String Lily

The Park is 64, 000 acres of sawgrass prairie and cypress swamps and although the water level is usually high and the mosquitoes offer their daily blood drive, the rains have not come as they usually do and without water, the mosquitoes have no place to lay eggs. So water and bugs aside, the only thing I had to contend with was the heat. My plan was to head up a remote trail in search of a gator hole where mother and pups might be found. The walk would be just over 2 miles, but as I approached the "trailhead", a flock of Black Vultures stood their ground. They were resilient and I was concerned I'd find a rotting feast of some sort, but as I slowly drove on, they scattered and revealed a simple puddle of water.

No sooner had I passed, the flock returned to the road and with my eyes trained ahead on the narrow, pothole riddled road, I spotted what I first thought to be the biggest dog I had ever seen. It stopped in the middle of the road, look towards me and continued on.

It was a Florida Black Bear!

or bigfoot?

As I got closer to the spot where the bear entered the woods, I grabbed my camera and followed, but like a big fuzzy brown ghost, it disappeared without a sound into the thicket.

There are an estimated 400 bears in this part of the state. They have long legs for ease in walking through the swamp. It was amazing to see and surprising considering the heat and time of the day. They may be active at any time of the day, but I figured they would have more sense than a maddog.