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You would also have to have access to a DNA lab that will sequence a sample all the way out and give you the results no matter what they are. I may be wrong but it seems to me the way the labs work now is that time is money and when you bring a sample in wanting to match it to an "animal' in the woods and the sample starts showing markers that are close to human it is going to get stamped with a label "contaminated by persons in the physical custody chain". Hiflier, I think I understand the psychology behind what you are trying to do. You seem to be trying to present a specialized scientist with a very intriguing piece of puzzle that is, what you hope to be, right down their ally of expertise and hoping it will plant a seed of deep interest in trying to solve it. When they cannot solve it using the currently known animals we know of in the woods maybe they will be more open minded in what else there could be out there to explain the puzzle. You will have to eventually have to deal with them saying that people are also in the woods. You were there so that means there is the possibility that other people could have been there. Some may see that the probability that others were there is very slim, but there will be many that will not go past that because they just do not want to go there.

Suppose you intrigue one scientist. Oh heck let's take an extremely optimistic end of the hypothetical: suppose you actually convince a handful of scientists. What then? What are they supposed to do?

And that is it. Nothing more. If something is outside the Human norm they will see it based on their own evaluations. And I will say nothing that could bias their thinking. It cannot be, and must not be, any other way.

My point was that scat DNA degrades rapidly as stated in the paper. That is the problem and will be with determination of species differences with scat. I forgot how you like to argue and I am done.