Waiting for Poop

  There are lots of weird, dirty jobs out there. Roadkill collector. Deodorant tester. Catfish noodler. Chicken sexer. But what about… whale poop collector? Leigh Torres, a marine ecologist at Oregon State University, collects the feces from these giant mammals to measure levels of stress hormones present in their bodies. The dirty job involves following a whale for some time and scooping the soft stool out of the water with a net. In this episode, Leigh describes the fascinating process of collecting whale waste and discusses what she and her team are learning about how whales respond to stress in the great big ocean.