FEATURE - Bronx zoo cheetahs go wild for Calvin Klein perfume
Date: 10-Feb-03
Country: USA
Author: Leslie Adler
No, they don't dab their favorite perfume behind their ears, but they do enjoy rubbing up against tree stumps sprayed with the scent.
But this is no New Age experiment in aromatherapy. Instead it's 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," Diana Reiss, senior research scientist at the Conservation Society and co-chairman of its Wildlife Enrichment Program, told Reuters.
"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 provide a way to stimulate the animals. Under the Wildlife Enrichment Program, the animals 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, Reiss said.
She said smell is essential to the lives of animals and an excellent way to introduce variety into the zoo environment.
"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 animals' 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."
The use of scents is also seen having applications in the wild to help track the movement of animals and do census counts.
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 causes 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, Reiss said.
But not all animals have high-class tastes when it comes to scents, Reiss said. Female cheetahs at the Bronx Zoo may rank Obsession for Men as their favorite perfume. But forget that for the pumas and lynx at the Queens Zoo. They'll take skunk urine extract any day.
