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Hunters go to nice lengths to cowl up their stink. Some carry pee bottles, others eat meals they declare make their pee scent higher, and others nonetheless insist on holding it in. Is all of it obligatory?
The science of pee
Urine is primarily made up of water, with a spattering of compounds and components like urea, potassium, and ammonia. These components permit deer and different olfactory-inclined animals, like canines, to “learn” the urine of different organisms and study a factor or two about who it got here from. That is particularly vital throughout the breeding season.
Owing to our variable diets and way of life selections, human urine is nearly actually a novel expertise for the nostril of any wild cervid. So It is sensible to conclude that our pee can be an unwelcome addition to any deer’s house, and this has been the opinion of hunters for many years.
Rest room speak
Within the early Nineteen Nineties, urine grew to become the topic of eager debate after famed outside author and photographer Charles Alsheimer described his use of human urine to create mock scrapes. Seems, whereas most of us have been swaying, cross-legged, in our tree stands, a choose few have been utilizing pee to their benefit.
This was a sufficiently big concept that two scientists from Austin State College, Texas, put collectively a examine on the topic. In 1998, Dr. Ben Koerth and Dr. James Kroll examined the responsiveness of white- tailed deer to mock scrapes handled with quite a lot of substances. The researchers created scrapes utilizing rutting-buck urine, estrous-doe urine, human urine, and scrapes with no scent in any respect, putting path cameras at every location to observe deer use.
The outcomes have been surprising. Not solely have been deer visiting the human-urine places, however human urine and rutting-buck urine outperformed all different take a look at websites. Go determine!
To resolve this unusual phenomenon, Koerth and Kroll replicated the examine in 1999, this time utilizing rutting-buck urine, estrous-doe urine, no scent, and synthetic “new-car” spray from an auto-shop. Whereas rutting-buck urine was nonetheless the most well-liked, deer visited all 4 scrape sorts, main the researchers to conclude that curiosity, not sexual attraction, was the driving power.
What scares you?
Whereas this appears to place to mattress the query of human urine, it doesn’t provide an evidence as to why. How may it’s {that a} predator’s urine, so overseas and potent to the nostril of a whitetail, isn’t an absolute crimson alarm to those cautious critters.
The reply might lie within the origin of concern itself. Plenty of animal behaviour (together with human) is discovered. Whereas most whitetails have greater than sufficient encounters with human physique odour to affiliate it with hazard, it’s unlikely that deer ever obtain sufficient lived expertise with human urine, particularly, to affiliate it with us in any respect.
Plus, pee sticks round for a very long time. In actual fact, the house vary of a whitetail is nearly actually going to be riddled with predator signal, from scat and urine to tracks and hair. So, even when they may inform the distinction between predator urine and that of one thing extra benign, it simply wouldn’t be sensible for such issues to elicit a critical response.
Caught in our methods
Most hunters are prone to proceed with no matter scent management they’ve all the time adopted. We’ve all obtained rituals. If it ain’t broke, don’t repair it, proper?
Nonetheless, attempting to be strategic about the place we do our enterprise generally is a ache. It’s a aid to know that, when nature calls, we will name proper again.
Initially printed in Ontario OUT of DOORS’ 2022-2023 Looking Annual
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