What do we ‘doo’ now?
BRAINTREE, Massachusetts, Nov 28, (Agencies): Apartment and condo managers, dogged by complaints from those who’ve have experienced the squishy and smelly sensation of stepping onto a pile of dog doo, are turning to DNA testing to identity the culprits who don’t clean up after their pets.
It’s the latest twist in the long-running struggle to keep canine waste off lawns, hallways, elevators and other common areas of animalfriendly community buildings.
DNA monitoring has yielded immediate and dramatic results in the Massachusetts condominium community of Devon Wood, where maintenance staff previously reported seeing, stepping into or driving over several piles of droppings each week on its 350-acre (142-hectare) property.
“We initially didn’t — for a better part of a month — didn’t find any waste, which just floored us,” said Barbara Kansky, who manages the 398-unit condo development in the town of Braintree that introduced DNA monitoring in July.
Polite reminders, letters and notices had previously failed to convince errant pet owners to observe condo rules requiring them to clean up after their animals, Kansky said. There were problems even after residents reported seeing others failing to pick up their dog’s messes.
“We would call or send a letter and that dog owner would say: ‘Prove it,’” Kansky said.
So she searched online and found Knoxville, Tennesseebased BioPet Vet Lab, which specializes in testing DNA from dog poop to identify offending animals. BioPet has beefed up its staff with more scientists to meet demand for what Eric Mayer, director of business development, calls “a booming, growing, new product,” and has started distributing throughout the U.S. and into Canada, Israel and Singapore in the past two years.
The service, branded PooPrints, is a very simple, Mayer said.
The first step is to register the DNA of all dogs in the community by collecting samples of their cheek cells using a pair of sterile swabs, Mayer said in an email. The second is to collect a sample of feces and send it to the lab for matching. (AP) SYDNEY: A tiger that attacked its handler at Australia Zoo, mauling him in front of a crowd of shocked spectators including schoolchildren, will remain at the popular tourist attraction, officials said Wednesday.
The Sumatran tiger reared up and bit into the neck and shoulder of 30-year-old Dave Styles on Tuesday at the Sunshine Coast zoo founded by the family of the late Steve Irwin, famous for his television show “Crocodile Hunter”.
“It wasn’t an act of aggression. It wasn’t the tiger attacking someone, it’s just a normal, daily part of the routine of the tigers and unfortunately we had a mishap,” Australia Zoo director Wes Mannion told broadcaster ABC.
Styles, who had raised the animal since it was a pup, has had surgery and remains in hospital in a stable but improving condition.
“It’s a 120 kilogram tiger, just pure muscle and (it’s) hard to wrestle off that type of beast,” English backpacker Dan Bass, who witnessed the attack, told reporters.
“Shock, absolute shock,” he said, describing the scene as the tiger attacked. “Screaming, and there were school children there and the teachers did really well to move them away from the glass,” he added. (AFP)