Scent lures from anal sac secretions of the ferretMustela furo L.

Abstract

A bioassay of eight synthetic anal sac compounds showed that ferrets were most attracted to a mixture of 2-propylthietane andtrans- andcis-2,3-dimethylthietane. This mixture was used as the basis of an artificial scent lure. Trapping experiments used two traps at each site. In comparing trap success, ferrets chose artificial lure in preference to no odor, and chose both food baits and natural-product anal sac odor over artificial lure. However, the effectiveness of artificial lure was demonstrated by comparison between trap sites with bait-lure pairs and those with lure only. The comparison indicated that scent lures should be as effective as bait in attracting ferrets, and this was confirmed in a field program. We conclude that scent lures are valuable additions to the current techniques used in mustelid control operations, but more work is needed to increase the inherent species specificity of scent lures for mustelids and to develop a simple means of making a lure that will release odor for a long time.