A new discovery about moose poop might surprise some Alaskan residents.
Back in 2018, Grace Leu Burke, an assistant professor in the Medical Laboratory Science Department at UAA, started looking at moose poop to teach students the science of the bacteria that exist in fecal matter.“What I discovered with this moose scat is not only was there quite a bit of anti-microbial resistant bacteria — that bacteria where your typical antibiotic isn’t going to work — it’s actually has gotten worse over a period of time,” Leu Burke said.
From those findings, she did not expect to find as much anti-microbial resistance or for it to be consistent, as well as increasing over time. Leu Burke explained anti-microbial resistance found in moose scat is similar to an ICU patient that was receiving a lot of antibiotics. “We have a significant housing insecure population in Anchorage that may not have access to the type of clean water that would allow them to wash,” Leu Burke said.
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