Studying wild animals without capturing them

Thanks to new DNA-analysis techniques, it is possible to study the genetic makeup of a population of kangaroos without bothering the hopping marsupials in their habitats: one can just collect their faeces. Miriam Zemanova created a website to let scientists know about this and many more tricks to reduce or eliminate harm to animals while studying wildlife. For this project, this scientist at the University of Fribourg received the 2026 3Rs Award, which honours outstanding contributions to the Replacement, Reduction, and Refinement of animal use in scientific research (the 3Rs).

When caring about wild animals and innovation go hand in hand

Miriam Zemanova has been interested in wildlife conservation since the beginning of her studies at the Czech University of Life Science in Prague. Over her academic career, which includes a Masters’s Degree in England and a doctorate at the University of Bern, she grew concerned about the harm done to wild animals while studying them. Often scientist capture animals to gain samples of blood or tissues from them. Tipically, they bring to the laboratory the samples or entire body parts for further analyses. In some cases, often when it comes to smaller animals, specimens are killed so that their tissues can be sampled.

When she was in Australia planning a research project on the genetic diversity of kangaroos in a nature reserve, she started to search for alternatives to the typical procedure involving the capture of specimen and DNA extraction from blood or tissues. After some desk research she was able to determine that collecting the faeces of the kangaroos would be enough to extract all the information needed about their genes. Her study was successful in determining the genetic diversity in the local kangaroo population, without coming close to any of them. Moreover, more samples were collected at a lower cost than would have been with invasive methods.

Dr. Zemanova wanted to promote such non-invasive methods in wildlife research beyond the projects she was involved in. Thus, she created a website dedicated to showcase their use. As of June 2026, it lists 2168 studies that, as her kangaroo research, deploy clever methodologies to study animals in their habitat without subjecting them to pain or discomfort.

Last year she launched a method finder, a tool that allows researchers to browse a database of non-invasive methods according to their fields of study and needs. The database, which she curated herself, contains 111 different methods such as planting camera traps, collecting shed hair or saliva traces on vegetation, analysing DNA dispersed in the air, water or snow, acoustic monitoring, or collecting naturally shed biological material. These replacement methods often generate robust scientific data while minimising disturbance and pain to animals.

Hopefully, the next time a young researcher is hesitating to employ traditional invasive methods in wildlife research, they will be able to quickly find alternatives that cause less harm to animals. Miriam Zemanova’s method finder will furthermore inform them at a glance about the advantages, limitations and costs of the methods selected by the tool.

The method finder, a needed resource in wildlife research

Miriam Zemanova has also researched the use of the non-invasive methods promoted through her website. A meta-analysis on wildlife genetic studies published in 2017 and 2018 revealed that only 22% of the surveyed articles used a non-invasive method. In 78% of the cases, researchers choose an invasive or even lethal method of collecting samples, even though at least one non-invasive replacement method would have been an option.

Today she declares: “There does not seem to have been much progress since then, so it is important to keep raising awareness among wildlife researchers about non-invasive techniques.”

The lack of adoption of replacement methods might be caused by the lack of awareness and the difficulty of finding the right method for a specific research design. Relevant information is scattered across the scientific literature, and no practical resource existed to help researchers navigate their options. The method finder empowers wildlife researchers to consider the 3R principle at the earliest stage of study design, where methodological choices with the greatest implications for animal welfare are made. By making non-invasive methods discoverable and comparable, it aims to lower the barriers to their adoption and contribute to more compassionate and effective wildlife research.

Dr. Zemanova, a researcher and lecturer at the University of Fribourg, was able to gain numerous sponsors for her informational website, 3rswildlife.info. Moreover, renowned institutions such as Norway’s National Consensus Platform for the advancement of the 3Rs (Norecopa), the U.S. Department of Agriculture or the non-profit 3Rs Collaborative recommend its use.