I’ve written a lot about conservation biologists using automatically activated cameras, or camera traps, to study elusive wildlife. But this is the first time I’ve heard of a men’s cologne, in this case Calvin Klein’s Obsession for Men, proving useful in such work.

Starting in 2003, biologists for the Wildlife Conservation Society, which among many activities runs the Bronx Zoo, began testing various perfumes and colognes on captive cats as possible attractants for camera trapping work. Patrick Thomas, the curator who initiated that effort, told me that the products containing musk were particularly good at eliciting the “cheek-rubbing behavior” that is helpful in studies seeking hair samples from passing cats as a way to check their DNA. (He emphasized that the fashion house has no involvement in the work.)

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Last year, the cologne was used as the attractant in camera studies aimed at determining the population density of jaguars in the Maya Biosphere Reserve in Guatemala. The photograph and the video sequence here show the results. [A reader makes an important point below about the source of some musk used in perfumes and the like — civets and other wildlife. A student posted some useful background on this awhile back.] [A spokesman for the Wildlife Conservation Society said that the musk used in the Calvin Klein cologne is all synthetic.]

One take-home lesson might be to leave the scents at home if you plan on a wildlife excursion any time soon — although Thomas noted that Obsession didn’t work well when he tried it in a research project focused on predatory cats in South Africa.