Polar bears at the Cincinnati Zoo are pooping glitter for science

Fighting extinction is a daunting and demanding task, but it does come with some quirky perks for the scientists willing to tackle it — like the opportunity to sort through thousands of packages of glitzy, glittery polar bear poop. 

Researchers at the Cincinnati Zoo and Botanical Gardens have been hard at work investigating means of conserving the global polar bear population since 2008. Focusing predominantly on the polar bear’s reproductive system, these scientists have spent over a decade attempting to crack the code on increasing the species’ population despite the continued threats posed by climate change.

One of the research group’s latest efforts involves collecting tens of thousands of fecal samples from polar bears in captivity all across the United States and Canada, making the zoo the proud owner of the world’s largest polar bear poop repository.

Now, here’s where the glitter comes in. Many of the contributing zoos with multiple polar bears use non-toxic glitters and dyes in their animals’ food to ensure they can sort out which poop came from which polar bear. As a result, the folks in Cincinnati are receiving plenty of sparkly samples in the mail. (Think glitter bombs, minus the explosion and with added poop.)  

Marking fecal samples with glitters and dyes isn’t new, but a quantity of poop as vast and sparkly as this is of note. So, why all the samples? 

“Right now there’s not a pregnancy test for polar bears,” Dr. Erin Curry, a researcher at the Cincinnati Zoo, told WLWT-TV. “So one of our biggest goals is to develop some sort of pregnancy test in which we can determine whether or not a polar bear is pregnant based on a single fecal sample.” 

The Cincinnati Zoo blog explains in-depth why effective pregnancy tests are so needed for this species, highlighting the tricky ins-and-outs of polar bear gestation.

“It is very difficult to determine if a female polar bear is pregnant because there is a period of time between mating and implantation of about 4 to 7 months, making it extremely difficult to know if breeding successfully resulted in a pregnant female,” the post explains. 

“Polar bears also go through a period called pseudo-pregnancy, in which females show an increase in progesterone level similar to that of a pregnant female, but in the end there is no cub born.” 

The ability to tell if and when a bear is pregnant would allow the scientists caring for these animals to better meet their needs during pregnancy as well as uncover what might be causing the fertilization process to fail.

While the Lindner Center for Conservation and Research of Endangered Wildlife has been investigating the possibility of a non-invasive fecal pregnancy test for years, the influx of samples from other research institutions and zoos to their facility should allow them to explore their findings within a larger sample size. 

In an ideal world, that means a better and faster solution to the polar bear pregnancy testing conundrum.