Tracking Snow

An innovative new project has discovered that animal footprints contain enough DNA to allow for species identification. The study, led by the USDA Forest Service, collected snow samples within animal tracks from known locations of collared or photographed animals. DNA was extracted from these samples and analyzed with cutting-edge genomic tools and newly developed molecular genetic assays to identify each species. They found these assays positively detected the DNA of each species in various snow samples and outperformed traditional lab techniques on previously undetectable genetic samples, which suggests that this method could revolutionize winter surveys of rare species by greatly reducing or eliminating misidentifications and missed detections.