You Might Remember A Kiddies Song,

'If You Go Down To The Woods Today',

in a slightly different take on that, 'If You Go Into The African Plains Today', be careful, very careful what perfume or after shave you are wearing! why? I hear you ask, well it is all down to civetone, a natural perfume ingredient that comes from the animal civet (a small nocturnal animal) that labs can manufacture now, according to the Bronx Zoo’s testing, it is a favorite with some cats, what brought it to my attention was a zoo in Norfolk England will be very glad to take any unwanted perfume or aftershave off of your hands, Banham Zoo has announced that it is soliciting fragrance donations. This is because the ocelots, jaguars, and cheetahs are enamoured with the intoxicating scents of perfumes, and they are running out of their supply. Do not worry about the very large cats, they will not like your perfume, well there's a relief! as they are apparently open to different fragrances, as Time detailed: 

The draw of a good perfume for both domestic cats but also wild cats is well-documented in various research projects. It can be positively enchanting for the big cats.

“The keepers at Banham have noticed their stocks of old perfumes are running low and are hoping that visitors to the zoo might also want to drop off any old or unwanted scents when they visit,” as the announcement puts it, “Our big cats definitely react positively when scents are used as part of their enrichment program. For some reason Calvin Klein perfume is a huge hit with all big cats but in all honesty, any perfumes work well and we do like to offer them a variety of different smells,” animal manager Mike Woolham said in the announcement, image via wikimedia commons, well thank goodness I do not use Calvin Klein, hopefully Sandalwood from Taylor of Old Bond Street will not be to their liking, if not I have a fast run on my hands if we go to Africa! 

as an aside if you have not heard, If You Go Down To The Woods Today, above is the Harry Hall and his Orchestra 1932 version, and yes I do remember this as my grandfather had it on an original 78 rpm record!