If you have an old Calvin Klein perfume bottle lying around, Banham Zoo, in Norfolk, would love to hear from you.

That’s because the big cats who call the zoo home, like lions, tigers and leopards, have taken a liking to perfume, and they “respond very positively to unique scents when sprayed in their enclosures”.

Animal manager Mike Woolham says they’re particularly fond of Calvin Klein perfume. Here’s the BBC:

Keepers say the strong scents help enrich the animals’ environments and investigating the smells keeps the big cats mentally and physically active.

In October 2018 bottles of Obsession for Men by Calvin Klein were brought in by wildlife officials to try to capture a tiger thought to have killed people in India’s western state of Maharashtra.

The experts there said the fragrance contains a pheromone called civetone derived from the scent glands of a cat-like mammal called the civet, which is often used in cologne. During an experiment at New York’s Bronx Zoo, jaguars were showed to love the perfume.

How intriguing.

Props to the big cats of Banham Zoo for having a taste for the finer things, but let’s all cast a judging eye in the direction of the big cats at the Carolina Tiger Rescue centre, which are said to favour Axe body spray.

Someone needs to have a word, because that’s unacceptable.

Great.

On with the day.

[source:bbc]