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Scientists Use Calvin Klein Cologne to Lure Big Cats
Biologists can't speak on the effectiveness of Calvin Klein Obsession for Men on the cougars at your local bar, but they do know that jaguars love it. Rony Garcia and Jose Moreira from the Wildlife Conservation Society's (WCS) Jaguar Conservation Program use the cologne to attract jaguars in the jungles of Guatemala. "The method we are using to study the jaguars here in Guatemala is a non-invasive method which is based on photographing the individuals by using camera traps," Moreira says. "It has been very useful using Obsession (for Men) to get the jaguars in front of these camera traps ... and that allows us to estimate with greater confidence the genders and the numbers that live in each studied site."
60% of the time, it works EVERY time...
I foresee this being used in a highly successful ad campaign - until a half dozen male hikers disappear in Central America and some very fat jaguars, wearing tight-fitting jeans, are spotted in the vicinity.
A feeling of having made the same mistake before: Deja Foobar
My sister helps run the conservators center (www.conservatorscenter.org) of North Carolina who house 40+ lions and tigers. By accident the found out how effective it is when one of their volunteers wore it. The lions were moaning trying to rub against them through the cages. Unfortunately Axe body spray didn't think it was a good marketing item as their reply to me was "We thank you for your interest but we don't accept marketing ideas from the public".
I can't be bothered to read the summary, This is slashdot, which means I already heard the story yesterday anyway.
It's apparently common to use fragrance (either sprayed perfume or scented magazine inserts) for "enrichment" of zoo animals so they don't get bored. A zookeeper maybe spritzes a log in the course of cleaning the tiger enclosure, and when the tigers come back in, they go nuts over this new smell, sniffing it repeatedly, rubbing against it, clawing at it etc.. I recall hearing that tigers go especially mental over Obsession and Charlie (probably all the musk).