It’s all about poop

Hi everyone! I always get myself into weird situations and… I actually ended up on the news.

Most importantly from the incident, the cat (with an owner) was trapped due to “repeated feedback regarding cat defecation and urination outside a resident’s unit”. This highlights the issue where owned free-ranging domestic cats (FRDC) may defecate around residential areas.The cleaners would have to clean up, usually with buckets of water, adding onto Singapore’s water consumption levels.

 

Now I’ll share with you a greater problem of defecation highlighted by Dr. Coleman, on how this natural body process can escalate into a disaster for wildlife. Let us look at the Sea otters (Enhydra lutris), and why their population numbers are not improving.

The otters were listed threatened in 1977 under the Endangered Species Act by the US Fish and Wildlife Services, with a population index below 3090 for three consecutive years (Carswell, n.d.). With the population threatened by the hunt for its fur and oil spills. To add fuel to the fire, it was discovered in 1996 that Toxoplasma gondii was one of the culprits of dead Otters of Montreal Bay. Unfortunately, this parasite penetrates and damages the brain tissue, eventually leading to death.

What’s surprising: Only Felidae family members are definitive hosts of Toxoplasma, including cats.

Let us track how the Toxoplasma gondii ended up in the oceans.

In 2013, the otters were considered endangered under the IUCN Red list as they face a high risk of extinction in the wild. It is worrying as otters are keystone species that maintain the kelp forest ecosystem. One of its valuable functions in protecting kelp forest is by consuming sea urchins, preventing the takeover of kelp forest with “urchin barrens”, which damages the ecosystem and other marine species.

However, it’s not all the FRDC’s fault that the toxoplasma ends up in the sea. With a growing population and increasing urbanization, forests and grasslands are replaced with impervious pavements. These impermeable surfaces result in a larger surface runoff as compared to the permeable soil that was previously removed. As such, more fecal pathogens can be carried to the sea. This also increases the runoff pollutants to wetlands, changing its water quality, and promoting wetland degradation. Ironically, the forest, grassland, and wetland all serve as natural filters that can filter out pathogens entering the water, including Toxoplasma (Aguiar et al., n.d).

To end off, otters are sentinel species, where sudden mass mortality serves as the detection of upcoming health threats posed to humans. This is especially due to otters’ vulnerability to anthropogenic diseases and parasites (Jessup et al., 2004).

The least we can do is to keep our cats indoors, and less water containing defecation would be washed directly into the sea without treatment.

Paws out!

 

References
Aguiar, D., Shapiro, K., Cox, J. and Ancheta, C., n.d. How A Parasite In Cats Is Killing Sea Otters. [online] EVOTIS. Available at: <http://www.evotis.org/toxoplasma-gondii-sea-otters> [Accessed 23 October 2020].

Carswell, L., n.d. Southern Sea Otter. [online] US Fish & Wildlife Service. Available at: <https://www.fws.gov/ventura/endangered/species/info/sso.html#:~:text=Southern%20sea%20otters%20(Enhydra%20lutris,the%20primary%20reasons%20for%20listing.> [Accessed 23 October 2020].

Jessup, David & Miller, Melissa & Ames, Jack & Harris, Mike & Johnson, Christine & Conrad, Patricia & Mazet, Jonna. (2004). Southern Sea Otter as a Sentinel of Marine Ecosystem Health. EcoHealth. 1. 239-245. 10.1007/s10393-004-0093-7.

National Sea Grant College Program. (2002, December 23). Parasite In Cats Killing Sea Otters. ScienceDaily. Retrieved October 20, 2020 from www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2002/12/021223084339.htm

9 thoughts on “It’s all about poop

  1. Hi Rachel,

    Love this post – so engaging, and that Prezi !

    Really, you’ve vastly improved and you should be damn proud of yourself.

    I have a question, with a preamble if you’ll permit me.

    You argue that people should keep their owned cats indoors – a statement I agree with, by the way, as would nearly any legit conservation biologist. But I perceive two problems with this. First, there’s tremendous opposition to this idea. Many cat owners believe that keeping their pets inside is somehow cruel and many others, especially rural owners, rely on their cats to control farm pests, such as mice – you could even argue that this has a positive environmental impact because it reduces use of rodenticides, especially if they’ve got real “mousers”.

    And toxoplasmosis isn’t just a wildlife disease problem – it leads to serious human disease as well. So… in light of how messy this issue really is and given what you learned in last week’s class about the ethics of environmental decision-making, what do you think is an appropriate way to deal with this issue ? Perhaps you might even consider dedicating a post to it ?

    Thanks, jc

    1. Hi Dr Coleman,

      Thank you for reading my blog!

      Indeed the argument that home cats should be kept indoors will face unwillingness from owners. For Singapore, currently there is a HDB ban of cats, meaning they shouldn’t be owned in HDB flats. The ban came about because of constant cat defecation along corridors. If neighbours were to lodge a complaint, the cat may have to be surrendered. This ban faced numerous opposition from welfare groups and the Member of Parliament, Mr Louis Ng, as well. Though there are measures in place, there are still occurrences of the home cats roaming around the streets. The owners may not try to limit their cat within home boundaries either due to lack of awareness of the dangers their cats may face outside like hit-by-car accidents or they want them to have freedom. I previously spoke to a few owners before, they understood the changes and limited their cats from roaming! Hopefully with more adjusted mindsets, people would not think that it is “cruel” to keep their cats at home, and would recognise the dangers posed on the cat if they were to roam them.

      Taking into account the positive environmental that free-ranging domestic cats bring, it is interesting to take into consideration the stakeholders and available methods to deal the issue. I’ll dedicate this topic to a post!

      Thank you for the suggestion!

      Cheers,
      Rachel

  2. Hello Rachel!

    WOW thank you for this post! I never knew how cats and otters could be related, thank you for shedding light on this issue! I’m so shocked to see how seemingly natural processes (like the FRDA defecating, or any animals defecating in general) can somehow have such far-ranging and lethal effects of populations in a completely different ecosystem! It really gets me thinking about our actions and their environmental impacts, that ultimately everything is interlinked and somehow, in some way, my actions could affect oceans thousands of kilometers away!

    I was wondering, don’t all animals in the wild defecate too and could potentially lead to the transmission of diseases and parasites? Do FRDC contribute substantially to this problem that more people should know about this? Or are the effects of FRDC defecation limited to only the otters?

    Thank you so much and I look forward to hearing from you!

    1. Hi Yee Qi!

      Thank you for such a great question!
      A natural process of defecation by wild animals can harm the lives of other wildlife species as well. Before my post on defecation by cats, I was reading up on zoonotic diseases transmitted via Free-ranging domestic dogs were found to be potential transmitter of the severe zoonotic disease echinococcus shiquicus, where there is a high human infection rate of Human alveolar enchinococcosis at Tibetan Plateau. Interestingly, this echinococcus parasite is found to a range of wildlife species! For example is can transmit between the Plateau Pika (Ochotona curzoniae) and Tibetan Fox (V. Ferrilata). And drumroll its related to transmission via defecation or contaminated soil, water, food! There are many pathogens out there that may not be zoonotic but can spread between different wildlife species. Therefore, the wildlife is known to be reservoirs for transmission of pathogens. With that said, I feel that we should decide more ways to better manage illegal wildlife trade, knowing that threat the trade could entail

      Thank you for reading my blog!

      Cheers!
      Rachel

      1. Hi Rachel & Yee Qi,

        Just to add on…

        The oocytes of the parasite that causes toxoplasmosis are shed by many feline species, including wild ones. And it’s a source of pathogen pollution for sure. And wildlife do shed pathogens in their feces that are important for human health. A great example is Giardia lamblia, which causes giardiasis – a disease that I’ve had actually and that permanently damaged my small intestine.

        The problem with domestic cats pooping outside is the huge population sizes these animals attain – unlike, say, bobcats, lynxes or leopard cats, they exist at densities that vastly exceed the carrying capacity of the environment. This is the combined effect of people feeding them and declines in populations of larger carnivores that might normally prey on them. So, long story short, all these individuals adds up to a lot of poop.

        jc

        1. Hi Dr Coleman!

          It must feel so bad to have Giardiasis. I’ve seen before many domestic dogs coming to animal clinics with Giardiasis and endless diarrhea coupled with tremendous weight loss. I remember how Giardiasis affects the nutrient and crucial vitamin uptake as well. All these poop problems are pretty bad considering how the parasites can contaminate food, water and fomites. The irreversibility of the human health impacts does red flag this whole poopy situation. I hope you are still able to enjoy the food that you want :'(

          Hope all is well,
          Rachel

          1. Hi Rachel,

            Thanks for your reply & concern…

            TBH, the fact that this caused permanent damage was partly my fault, cos I was too embarrassed to seek help. It was only after a solid month of being sick that I worked up the courage to say anything. Looking back, that was super idiotic.

            It was also partly the fault of the medical system in Alberta, where I lived. They weren’t testing sufficiently, so I got a false negative, and the wait to see a gastroenterologist was many months.

            I flew back to Québec and took advantage of “connections” – as in, my parents’ neighbour was an ER doctor, to get an immediate appt with a specialist. By that time, the damage was done.

            It caused total lactose intolerance (by destroying some of the villi in my intestine) but somehow, that has gotten better with time. So now, the only things I can’t have are milk and cream. But other dairy products are ok. So I’m very lucky.

            Why do I share this story ? Cos it taught me that just because your bum’s involved (or any body part, including your mind), there’s no health problem you should ignore out of embarrassment. I want all my students to set aside any fear of stigma and tell someone they trust when they’re unwell in any way.

          2. Hi Dr Coleman!

            Glad to hear that it’s getting a little better. I realised that means you can’t drink bubble milk teas:( Luckily you got a doctor in time! It’s concerning that the results were false negative, hopefully it’s not a common occurrence.

            I totally related and feel your story regarding how one may delay the visit to the doctors just because of embarrassment/fear of stigma. A few years ago I had issues with my female part.. and I delayed the visit to the doctors, it got progressively worse and affected my lifestyle. My friend who had the same issue shared with me how the visit won’t be that traumatising. Indeed I am so glad I went for the checkup instead of “self-treatment” (That was dumb of me), and the issue was finally fixed!

            I hope that one day all humans have prompt opportunities to healthcare such that the health impacts are lessened, but I guess it’s an ideal that’s hard to achieve.

            Thank you for commenting on my blog!

            – Rachel

  3. Believe me when I say the inability to drink any kind of boba tea is a blessing, not a curse. Bobas totally freak me out.

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