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sofia > academy of environmental science and technology > science fair
Academy of Environmental Science and Technology Forest Hill Community High School
Palm Beach County Science Fair Projects
Captive Florida Panther Scent Enrichment
Jessica Collins, Janine Wallach, and Cheyanne Niedringhaus
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This project involved the use of two scents aiming to enrich a captive panther’s activities and to help him loose weight. We aimed to answer the questions, what scent attracts the panther more and stimulates activity, natural prey or artificial cologne? The scents used were a natural fish scent (sardine) and an artificial cologne scent (Panthere by Cartier) to imitate a female’s musk. We placed these scents in four places in his den at the Palm Beach Zoo and alternated their placement each research day to insure his attraction to the scent and not the place. We observed the panther on four separate days for one hour in the mourning and recorded his location every thirty seconds (at the natural scent, the artificial scent, or neither). We recorded where he was at the time point, and we also took observation notes including zookeeper disturbances, visitor disturbances, and presence of squirrels, etc.
Our results showed a total of 9 data points of the panther’s presence at the artificial scent, 21 at the natural scent, and 451 at neither of the scents. We concluded that our prediction of a greater attraction to the natural prey scent was correct. Being a captive panther, he has not been exposed to other female panthers, perhaps influencing his preference. However, overall his activity level did not increase as much as we anticipated, and his attraction to both scents was not very strong resulting in a poor success rate for enriching his activity.
For More Information:
Sasha Linsin
Forest Hill Community High School
690l Parker Avenue, West Palm Beach, Florida 33405
(561) 540-2493
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