Just when you think you
cannot be surprised we get something like this.
Jaguars are interested in Calvin Klein’s Obsession for Men. That makes it effective to inducing sufficient
dwell to trigger the cameras.
This idea needs to be
followed up with in terms of many other critters. The right odor is likely to give any creature
pause. We only need to recall the sudden
whiff of lilac. Now imagine it out of
season. You surely get the point. Our own surprise brings us to a halt in a way
almost little else will without threatening us.
I think that we have
identified a valuable line of inquiry
You’ll Never
Guess How Biologists Lure Jaguars To Camera Traps
Field biologists are increasingly turning to camera
traps to collect data. The set-up is really simple: when an animal passes in
front of a camera, an infrared sensor becomes activated, and the camera
silently snaps a photo. Sometimes – especially for camera traps designed to
detect nocturnal species – an infrared flash, invisible to most mammals and
birds, is used.
The photographs generated from camera traps can then
provide researchers with far more data than they would be able to collect
themselves with more traditional field observations. Often, this allows them to
generate photographic evidence of a species’ natural behaviors without the
confounding effects of direct human observation. It allows them to collect data
continuously, throughout the day and night. And a camera trap can help
researchers collect evidence of rare species or rare behaviors, as was
demonstrated last week when a camera trap captured a golden eagle preying upon a sika
deer. Or they could
help researchers come face-to-face with an animal that might otherwise be
dangerous or harmful. An array of camera traps is also more cost efficient than
paying an army of field assistants to observe animal behavio or to conduct a
census.
Camera traps are also far less invasive than most
other forms of wildlife data collection, since critters don’t need to be
trapped and released. And their presence is far less stressful for most animals
compared with human observation.
Take the jaguar. The third largest cat in the world
after tigers and lions, jaguars (Panthera onca) are nocturnal, solitary cats.
Females’ territories can range from twenty-five to forty square kilometers, and
males can roam areas twice as large. Due to primarily to habitat loss and to
conflict with farmers, jaguar populations are declining; they’re considered
“near threatened” by the IUCN. Oh, and a mature jaguar’s jaws are capable of
biting down with two thousand pounds of force, the strongest of any cat. It
subdues its prey in an ambush attack by biting down on the skull, its massive
teeth puncturing the brain adjacent to each ear.
Put together, this makes jaguars well suited for
camera trap research. Still, human observers can do things like change the
direction they’re looking. Cameras generally can’t. So biologists like Miguel
Ordeñana try to hedge their bets and optimize the probability that an animal of
interest will come by and trigger the camera’s shutter.
Ordeñana is a biologist with the Natural
History Museum of Los Angeles. He’s an expert
on camera traps, and when he’s not using them to understand the mountain lions
who make their homes in the mountains of Los Angeles, he conducts field
research on jaguars in Nicaragua.
###
Meow.
And the best way to convince a jaguar to trigger a
camera trap? Calvin Klein Obsession for Men. Seriously.
According to Ordeñana, a Bronx Zoo researcher once
tried a bunch of different scents and discovered that jaguars really liked the
Calvin Klein cologne. A researcher might spray some of the cologne on a tree
branch that sits within the camera’s field of view.
What’s so special about this particular scent
mixture? “It has civetone and it has vanilla extract,” he says. Civetone is a
chemical compound derived from the scent glands of civets, smallish nocturnal
cats native to the Asian and African tropics, and it’s one of the world’s
oldest perfume ingredients. “What we think is that the civetone resembles some
sort of territorial marking to the jaguar, and so it responds by rubbing its
own scent on it,” he explained to me. And the vanilla might set off the cats’
curiosity response. No matter which compound is responsible for jaguars’
interest – or both – the key is that the scent gets them to stick around long
enough to activate the camera’s shutter.
The molecular formula for civetone is C17-H30-O
I asked Miguel if he avoids wearing Calvin
Klein Obsession for Men while doing field work in Nicaragua. “I don’t
really care, because the chances of me running into a jaguar are so slim.”
Which, after all, is why he uses the camera traps in
the first place.
Still, you probably wouldn’t want to wear the
cologne and then take a nap, alone, at night, in the jungle. Then again, you probably
wouldn’t want to do that anyway.
A jaguar captured by one of Miguel Ordenana's camera
traps on January 7, 2013. Click photos to enlarge.
Update: It’s worth pointing out that most
modern perfume makers use synthetic versions of civetone, extracted from palm
oil, so that they don’t have to harass actual civets…
1 comment:
AZ Game and Fish is going to sacrifice the Jaguar that lives
here for the progress of mining.
Some claim this may be the only Jaguar left in America.
http://www.hcn.org/hcn/blogs/range/jaguar-versus-the-copper-mine
http://azstarnet.com/news/science/environment/jaguar-roves-near-rosemont-mine-site/article_e8573513-b55b-553e-934c-e8951555f14e.html
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