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Female cheetahs at New York's Bronx Zoo prefer men's cologne (Pic: S. Durant, WCS) |
Female cheetahs at the Bronx Zoo just love Calvin Klein perfumes. But these New York cats don't dab it behind their ears - they just enjoy rubbing up against tree stumps sprayed with it.
This is no New Age experiment in aromatherapy, but part of a program of the Wildlife Conservation Society, which operates New York City's zoos and aquariums, to keep animals healthy and happy.
"We want to enrich the daily lives of the animals, both physically and psychologically," said Dr Diana Reiss, a senior research scientist at the Conservation Society and head of its Wildlife Enrichment Program.
"Now we know we need to deal with the whole animal," she said. "One of the ways we do that is offering our animals different kinds of scents to give them variety."
The scents help stimulate the animals, and provide a beak from the monotony of zoo life. Under the program, they also get to play with interactive toys and puzzles, learning to manipulate boxes to find a hidden toy or food treat. Research has shown that animals would rather work for their food than just be given it.
Smell is essential to the lives of animals and an excellent way to introduce variety into the zoo environment, she said.
"With our cheetahs at the Bronx Zoo, we worked from inexpensive perfumes to expensive perfumes," she said. "The one one they respond to the most is Calvin Klein Obsession for Men. But they also respond to inexpensive perfumes."
The wildlife workers test the response to various scents by spraying tree stumps with different perfumes, or placing cinnamon or other spices in the animals' environment.
"We'll observe how much time they spend in that area," Reiss said. "The cheetahs come out and start sniffing and have a high old time. It gets them active; it gives them something different."
Reiss noted that the society's Asia and Africa program has been researching using perfumes and biological scents to attract animals in the wild so they can be photographed. The scents are applied in an area where a camera has been installed. When an animal enters the area, a beam is tripped that triggers a picture to be taken.
The scents can also be used to attract animals so they can be tagged for radio tracking to do census counts, she said.
Not all animals have high-class tastes when it comes to scents, Reiss added. While Bronx Zoo's female cheetahs rank Obsession for Men as their favourite, pumas and lynx at New York City's Queens Zoo have somwhat different tastes: they prefer skunk urine extract.
More Info?
Freedom too hard for Willy, News in Science 14 Sep 1999
Herbs add interest for zoo animals, News in Science 14 Jan 1999
