Conservation: Why are Blackpool Zoo's elephants eating glitter?

Image source, Blackpool Zoo

Image caption, The edible glitter is being added to the food of the female elephants to help identify their poo

Elephants at Blackpool Zoo are munching on a pretty unusual snack - edible glitter!

The zoo's elephant enclosure tends to have a lot of poo on show and the idea is to help staff better work out which poo belongs to which elephant.

Only female elephants are being fed the glitter as the plan is to use the glittery poo to figure out whether the elephants are pregnant.

The International Union for Conservation of Nature (IUCN) says that Asian elephants are endangered in the wild because of poaching, habitat loss and climate change.

Image source, Blackpool Zoo

Image caption, The zoo is hoping to help save the Asian elephant population as the species is endangered in the wild

It's hoped that conservation programmes like the one at Blackpool Zoo will help grow the population worldwide.

The poo will be collected twice a week and sent to a research laboratory at Chester Zoo for testing.

Adam Kenyon, section head at Blackpool Zoo, said: "We have used edible glitter to track hormone levels of many of our animals, so it is a tried and tested method for these types of investigations."

The glittery poo technique was a recommendation from the European Endangered Species Programme.

This programme hopes to increase the population of endangered animals in different zoos across Europe.