Toilet habits and wildlife impacts

[Thornbill]

Some interesting research into the impact of the toileting habits of walkers on Tassie Devils, with a potential human-devil parasite transmission.

http://www.themercury.com.au/news/tasmania/human-parasites-may-pose-threat-to-tassie-devils-say-scientists/news-story/1e5960d23c643f1020688a464688f4e6

And here's the original, open access journal paper. Because, when it comes to the media reporting on science, it's always good to see the original source http://journals.plos.org/plosone/article?id=10.1371/journal.pone.0174994

[Nuts]

The link is through a paywall. Access by google should bring it up to read (once).
Not that it seems an entirely accurate interpretation, and be good to see a wider framework for poop V wildlife generally.
I suspect, between the omnivores and typical cathole conditions, very little actually stays buried (just observation, no hard data).

[MrWalker]

I find it interesting that the full article is available on line, but the Mercury hides their misleading version behind a paywall.
The study showed no evidence that bushwalkers transmit any parasites to devils. The only human-type parasite was in a captive devil.

[Thornbill]

Hence the link to the original research. From that you can draw your own, properly informed conclusions. Which you can't do from the Mercury article. The potential for introduction/transmission of diseases and parasites from walkers like ourselves is an interesting question though and i'd like to see some more research done on this.