Working alongside the paths that whipsaw by way of the oak forests of the Palo Alto hills, I used to be hit with a musky, skunky scent that made the hair on my neck rise up.
I don’t know if it was a mountain lion, however one thing within the deep recesses of my mind advised me to cease working, transfer slowly and maintain my wits about me — all of the whereas ruing the day I had change into a vegetarian.
Abruptly and surprisingly, I discovered myself recalling an experiment my dad performed within the Eighties when he examined the concept that animals — i.e. deer — may discriminate between the odors of meat-eaters and vegetarians.
Susanne Rust, the reporter, and her father, Langbourne Rust, in a pony cart in 1979.
(Courtesy of Susanne Rust)
Forty years later, I used to be taking my dad’s query in a brand new, situation-specific course: Can a mountain lion, by scent, detect a vegetarian? And although mountain lions often devour carnivores and omnivores, did I scent extra like straightforward prey — i.e. breakfast — than a fellow predator?
My run ended as a stroll and with no ambush. However the query took maintain and made me mirror on my father and led me to weeks of studying articles and analysis research and speaking to scientists and consultants on predation and scent.
I’d study that there’s one explicit animal that may discriminate between the odors of people who eat meat and people who don’t — and it’s neither mountain lion nor deer.
I grew up in a small, woodsy — however tony — Hudson River Valley village 30 miles north of Manhattan in the course of the Nineteen Seventies and ’80s. And from in regards to the time I used to be 10, I knew my dad was thought-about, nicely … totally different.
There have been the pelts of small mammals and birds that hung in our storage — and from which my dad scavenged to make fishing flies. And whereas most of my associates’ fathers commuted into town, my dad’s workplace was in our home — which meant he was the mum or dad ready on the bus cease.
But it surely was the venison we ate all 12 months lengthy that basically signified to me one thing was totally different within the Rust home.
On evenings and weekends, whereas different dads have been taking part in golf or tennis, my father would don a zip-up, one-piece camouflage swimsuit. He’d paint his face with brown, black and olive stripes and slip into the woods behind our home, compound bow beneath his arm, to hunt deer.
Beginning within the late Nineteen Seventies, Langbourne Rust would cease consuming meat for the 2 months earlier than deer looking season. He believed that by smelling like a non-meat-eater, he was much less prone to spook his prey.
(Courtesy of Susanne Rust)
He was so nicely camouflaged that by the point he bought three or 4 toes into the woods, he was unimaginable to see.
This was an issue for my brother and me, as a result of we have been allowed to observe just one hour of tv a day. When my dad went looking, we’d surreptitiously activate the set — attempting to get “I Love Lucy” and “The Carol Burnett Present” reruns — by no means realizing if he was standing on the fringe of the woods watching us. Seems, he often was.
Educated as a psychologist, my father had carved out a profession in youngsters’s advertising, which often necessitated a visit into town. It was on considered one of these expeditions that my dad met up with a buddy who advised him a few weapons system he’d labored on in the course of the Vietnam Struggle referred to as Undertaking Batboy.
In keeping with my dad’s recollection of the dialog, the system consisted of mechanical chemo-sensing units that have been designed to differentiate — within the subject — between meat-eating U.S. troops and the largely vegetarian North Vietnamese.
I’ve not been capable of confirm Undertaking Batboy, however did study the U.S. constructed a chemo-sensing system referred to as a “individuals sniffer.”
South Vietnamese military rangers, supported by helicopters, make their means by way of tall grass throughout an assault.
(Tim Web page / Corbis by way of Getty Pictures)
Deployed on low-flying helicopters, it picked up air samples, and by way of a chemical response to ammonia, an indicator of urine or sweat, signaled the presence of people. The sniffer additionally may detect smoke, an indication of human exercise. As soon as detected, the positioning was marked on a map, and carpet bombed that day, or the next morning. (Walter Cronkite as soon as launched a section on the sniffer. You possibly can watch it right here.)
Apparently, it didn’t take lengthy earlier than the North Vietnamese discovered what was occurring and began hanging buckets of urine within the bushes to throw the People off their scent.
In keeping with my dad’s buddy, the Batboys took the individuals sniffer idea a step additional — leading to a tool that would one way or the other discriminate between meat-eaters and vegetarians (which, just like the individuals sniffer, often singled out unsuspecting animals).
My dad stated he didn’t assume an excessive amount of in regards to the anecdote on the time, aside from contemplating the horror of all of it. However just a few months later, as looking season approached, it spurred an thought.
For years he’d put on not simply camouflage garments however synthetic scents too — which he claimed actually didn’t appear to work, however which hunters usually use to lure or confuse their prey.
In an article for Sports activities Afield journal in 1984, my dad wrote, “The problem of looking … is the problem of overcoming the deer’s sense of scent.” He had solely two agency conclusions about synthetic scents, writing that “1) If I scent like a deer, canine will chase me, and a pair of) if I scent like a skunk, individuals will keep away from me.” (The identical version included an article headlined “Intercourse and the Single Hunter,” however that’s one other story.)
He had observed that deer appeared to spook if he was upwind of them. Was it as a result of they might inform he was a predator by his carnivorous scent?
So started an experiment by which my dad grew to become a vegetarian within the two months main as much as looking season — a tactic he claims was wildly profitable however which got here to an finish in 2007 after he bought Lyme illness, a tick-borne sickness that appears to focus on individuals who spend numerous time within the woods, for the sixth time.
His looking days have been over.
Olfaction is probably the most historical of animal senses, stated Catherine Value, a behavioral ecologist on the College of Sydney in Australia.
“Micro organism use it and mainly each organism makes use of it,” she stated.
They’ll use it to seek out meals, keep away from predation, and within the case of animals which have intercourse to breed, discover a mate. Within the case of deer, they use it for all three functions. However did my dad avoiding meat idiot the deer into pondering he was innocent? That’s not so clear.
“A whole lot of these looking theories I name anecdotal,” stated Carter Niemeyer, a retired federal {and professional} wildlife trapper who has used scents to lure animals for north of six many years. “His private knowledge advised him that it was working for him,” he stated of my father, “so I wouldn’t discredit him, even when I could be skeptical.”
As for my query of whether or not a mountain lion may inform if I used to be a vegetarian after which use that as knowledge to resolve whether or not to pounce — Niemeyer discovered that unlikely.
Initially: Mountain lions are visible predators, he stated. My working, greater than my scent, would have made me a goal. Which isn’t to say mountain lions don’t use olfaction to seek out prey, he stated. They most likely do.
“It’s comparable with bear assaults,” he stated. “Like a grizzly bear attacking a hunter who’s gutting an elk. They abruptly sense that overwhelming odor of elk blood and are available in for a glance … there’s that side of predators needing to establish what they’re attacking.”
Which is why whenever you’re out within the woods, particularly in bear and mountain lion nation, you must be certain to announce your self with a “Hey, bear! Hey, bear!”
“Discuss out loud, establish your self, and permit these predators to form of soak up the entire scene and all of the humanness and assist them understand this isn’t considered one of my traditional prey gadgets,” he stated.
People most likely scent, nicely, human to most wildlife — with out fur, and with our sweat glands oozing on the floor, we’re a fairly pungent, or a minimum of stunningly recognizable, creature. The comparatively small variations between us (our cleaning soap decisions, laundry detergent preferences and diets) most likely aren’t tremendous vital or related.
These extra smells are simply noise sputtering across the one vital sign, stated Value, which is that we’re human — and subsequently indicating it’s time for that animal to run or conceal.
That’s, until that animal advanced to feed particularly on us.
A couple of mosquito species feed solely on human blood, as an example. They don’t like deer, canine or cows. Simply individuals. Apparently, they’re drawn in by odor.
Niels Verhulst, a researcher on the College of Zurich’s Institute of Parasitology, stated it’s the make-up and composition of the bacterial species we harbor on our pores and skin that give us our odor. A few of that’s decided by genetics, some from the merchandise we use on our pores and skin, and a few from our eating regimen.
“However how vital these totally different elements are? That’s one thing that we have no idea but,” he stated, noting that there’s a constructive correlation between consuming beer and one’s attractiveness to mosquitoes.
However what is obvious is that science has discovered just one species that may discriminate between human vegetarians and carnivores: Homo sapiens.
In 2006, Jan Havlicek, director of the Human Ethology program at Charles College in Prague, arrange an experiment by which he bought younger, college-aged ladies (who weren’t taking hormonal contraceptives — which may theoretically have an effect on a girl’s notion of scent) to scent a sequence of odor-infused swaths of material that had been worn within the armpits of equally aged males.
The ladies have been requested to price the “pleasantness, attractiveness, masculinity, and depth” of the sweat-infused samples. Seems, Havlicek stated, that they discovered the odors of vegetarians “extra engaging, extra nice, and fewer intense” than the meat-eaters.
A comparable examine was repeated 13 years later by a workforce of Australian researchers, who got here up with barely contradictory findings: Probably the most nice aromas got here from males who ate numerous vegetables and fruit. But it surely wasn’t the lads who ate meat who had the bottom scores. That rating went to guys who ate numerous carbohydrates.
(Fascinating aspect be aware: These outcomes mirror knowledge exhibiting that males who’ve yellower, extra carotenoid-rich pores and skin — a byproduct of consuming numerous fruits and veggies — are additionally discovered to be extra engaging by ladies.)
As for my dad? He by no means went again to his vegetarian days, though he eats loads much less meat than he used to. Which can clarify the fixed presence of deer consuming the flowers and shrubs in my mother and father’ yard.
