The Deer Will be Ready for Spring, Will You?

Well, up here in Maine, the snow is still on the ground and more supposedly coming this weekend. But, one thing I know is true – spring will come! It will come sooner for many of you – lucky dogs. The deer will be ready to make up for lost time and looking for unprotected gardens and flower beds. Well, the PeeMan doesn’t want the fruit of your hard labor nibbled up by pesky deer again this year. Our 100% original, undiluted, quality CoyotePee is the solution. Just set up a Peerimeter around your garden using our handy 33 Day Dispensers or Scenttags and coyote urine, and beat those deer to the punch this year. But, as I frequently say, you don’t have to take my word for it . . .

If you want another testimonial, count me in. I was honestly skeptical of your claims, especially after reading over and over that NOTHING keeps deer away. I took a chance 2 years ago (going into my 3rd growing season with it), and I haven’t had one deer in my gardens since. They decimate my neighbors’ flower beds, and during the winter went after their evergreens. I’ve watched them wander towards my raised beds and stop dead in their tracks for a minute, then back off and go the other way. It’s fantastic. One of my avid gardener friends thought it was gross to hang bottles of pee in the yard (I think it’s gross to plant 400 tulips and never see even one bloom because the deer ate them). After losing almost everything she planted last year, she came over asking to buy a bottle from me. That’s why I need more!

Thanks,
Joy Breese

Just another satisfied customer and protected garden. Well, I will go back and stoke the fire and begin the long wait for spring in Maine. The PeeMan

Beaver Bedlam? We’ve Got A Pee for that.

Greetings from the frozen north woods! Came across some interesting research while I was warming myself by the wood stove. In this study, wolf urine showed itself to be an effective way to deter beavers. Don’t take my word for it – read their conclusions for yourself.(Italics mine)

Predator cues reduce American beaver use of foraging trails

WILLIAM J. SEVERUD, Northern Michigan University, Department of Biology, 1401 Presque Isle
Avenue, Marquette, MI 49855, USA wseverud@nmu.edu
JERROLD L. BELANT, Carnivore Ecology Laboratory, Forest and Wildlife Research Center, Mississippi
State University, Box 9690, Mississippi State, MS 39762, USA
JOHN G. BRUGGINK, Northern Michigan University, Department of Biology, 1401 Presque Isle
Avenue, Marquette, MI 49855, USA
STEVE K. WINDELS, 360 Highway 11 East, International Falls, MN 56649, USA

Discussion

We found a 95% reduction in beaver numbers at camera stations containing predator urine, indicating that beavers altered their space use in response to an indirect cue of predation risk. Beavers also spent 95% less time at urine-treated camera stations and exhibited no decrease in time spent at control camera stations. Decreased time spent at urine-treated camera stations suggests that antipredator behavior in beavers in our study area was strong, consistent with the risk allocation hypothesis (Lima and Bednekoff 1999). Decreased use and time spent at urine treated camera stations suggests that wolf urine is an effective deterrent to beaver activity and that beavers use olfaction to assess predation risk. In our study area, wolves have large territories and range extensively (Mech 1974); hence, beavers may experience only occasional temporal pulses of risk from wolves. These pulses of risk may be perceived by beavers regardless of actual predation events, which may be affected by available alternate wolf prey (Voigt et al. 1976). Although our study was short in duration, it represented a brief pulse of elevated predation risk. That beavers avoided camera stations containing wolf urine supports the tenet of the risk allocation hypothesis, which states that brief, infrequent pulses of high risk will elicit strong antipredator behaviors in prey species (Lima and Bednekoff 1999). Our data suggest that beavers either reduced total foraging activity or began using unmonitored or untreated trails. American and Eurasian beavers both have exhibited use of olfaction to assess risk by repressing scent-marking behavior (Rosell and Sanda 2006) and foraging (Engelhart and Müller-Schwarze 1995, Rosell and Czech 2000) in response to predator odors.

Well, I’d better go put another log on the fire. Have a good one! The PeeMan

Squirrel Solutions

The PeeMan here. On another journey into the world of cyberspace I came across the following discussion on VegetableGardener.com

Q. “My gardens are ruined every summer by tunnelling ground squirrels. I am looking for an answer to getting rid of them permanently. Any ideas?”

One of the answers:

“I have had outstanding success with “predator urine.” I find that coyote urine (there are fox, wolf, bobcat and mountain lion available on line). After having terrorist squirrels ravage my garden one year, I tried it. Very small plastic bottles (like motel shampoo ones) with some fiber and holes in them, strunbg every 10-15 feet (and you cannot smell it but skunks, squirrels, deer, woodchucks and rabbits, etc can)…my garden has been completely unmolested for three years! Google “predator urine” and you will get the firms; I use one in Maine. Best, chaepest, environmentally friendly and a fabulous conversation item!”

I couldn’t have said it better myself, and it sounds like they used our 100% PredatorPee.

Stopping Coyotes in their Tracks

Hi, this is the PeeMan. I was just browsing the web from the comfort of my PeePalace, and I came across this post in a chat on The Straight Dope in a discussion of predator urine as a deterrent. Sounds a lot like our 100% WolfPee placed in our 33 Day Dispensers. No way to know for sure, but the best part is that the urine of the Canis Lupus cut the coyote invasion short!

Wolf urine

“Hi Sorry about you pets. We were losing ducks to coyotes recently. They finally had started to dig under our chain link fence so I started putting out wolf urine in small containers you can hang on the fence. If you just sprinkle it the rain dilutes it too quickly – I’m in WA. Anyway, it has worked for us. I have heard male human urine works also.”

The PeeMan is back and the Rodents are Scared Pee-less

It has been a long absence from the blogosphere for the PeeMan. I have been kind of busy chasing all those animals around to collect the pee. Never fear, for although we have been away from blogging, Predatorpee has been continuing to furnish customers all over the globe with the the best and original 100% Predator Urine. But, you don’t have to take only my word that this stuff works. Take a look at what the expersts have to say:

Chemical in Predator Pee Scares the Pee Out of Rodents

By Joseph Castro | June 23, 2011 10:54 pm

What’s the News: In the animal kingdom, prey species must follow one rule above all others: keep away from predators. To do this, some animals take chemical cues from the urine they stumble upon. Now, new researchpublished in the Proceedings of the National Academy of Science has identified a single molecule in the urine of many mammalian carnivores that causes rodents to scurry in fear. This chemical could eventually help scientists understand instinctual behavior in animals.

How the Heck:

A research team at the Harvard Medical School analyzed a group ofolfactory receptors called trace amine-associated receptors (TAARs). They concentrated on one in particular, TAAR4, which is strongly activated by bobcat urine (sometimes used by gardeners to repel small pests). They found that one specific molecule, called 2-phenylethylamine, is responsible for the TAAR4 reaction.
To see if 2-phenylethylamine is bobcat specific, the team tested urine samples from 38 mammalian species, including servals, snow leopards, giraffes, zebras, and rodents. They found that the carnivores had the highest concentrations of the molecule, with some species, like lions and tigers, producing up to 3,000 times more 2-phenylethylamine than the herbivores.
As a way of checking the role of the molecule, the researchers placed a few drops of lion urine loaded with 2-phenylethylamine in a cage with mice and rats. The rodents avoided that area of the cage. The team then used urine free of the chemical, and found that the rodents had no aversion to it.

What’s the Context:

Scientists have long known that chemical cues can mediate predator-prey interactions, and not just in mammalian species. For example, some salamanders and tree frogs use these cues to detect predatory fish.
Sometimes these the cues aren’t enough. The parasitic diseasetaxoplasmosis can overcome rodents’ instinctual aversion to predatory urine. In some cases, the disease causes mice to actually seek out areas marked by cat urine. The mechanism is still a bit unclear, but scientists believe that taxoplasma does this by affecting dopamine levels in theamygdala.
The exact role of TAARs, first discovered 2001, is also unclear. But, “here we have the first convincing evidence that they might control instinctive behaviour,” Anna Menini, president-elect of the European Chemoreception Research Organization in Paris, told Nature.

The Future Holds:

The researchers are working to experimentally show that TAAR4 controls the rodents’ instinctive behavior. They are also trying to pinpoint brain circuits that TAAR4 activates as it responds to 2-phenylethylamine.
Future research needs to explain why carnivores have a higher concentration of the 2-phenylethylamine in their urine. The team suspects that it’s a by-product of meat digestion.