Female cheetahs at the Bronx Zoo in New York just love Calvin
Klein's Obsession for Men perfume.
 |
A
cheetah at the Bronx Zoo in New York rubs a log that has been
sprayed with perfume |
No, they don't dab their favorite perfume behind their ears,
but they do enjoy rubbing up against tree stumps sprayed with
the scent.
Instead this is 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, told reporter. "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. Reiss said
smell is essential to the lives of animals. "With our cheetahs
at the Bronx Zoo, we worked from inexpensive perfumes to expensive
perfumes," she said. "The 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.
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.
(Agencies)