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From: ronald@uhunix1.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu (Ronald A. Amundson)
Newsgroups: sci.research,sci.psychology,sci.bio
Subject: Re: Skunk Glands
Message-ID: <11949@uhccux.uhcc.Hawaii.Edu>
Date: 14 Mar 91 06:50:43 GMT
References: <1991Mar14.005509.20271@massey.ac.nz>
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In article <1991Mar14.005509.20271@massey.ac.nz> A.S.Chamove@massey.ac.nz (A.S. Chamove) writes:
>I am interested in making some SKUNK ODOUR.
>
...
... I am really interested in copying its aversive properties.
>
>-- 
>Arnold Chamove
>Massey University Psychology
>Palmerston North, New Zealand

Not meaning to be culturally presumptive, but inasmuch as skunks are
not native to New Zealand, it crosses my mind that perhaps Mr. Chamove
is believing what he reads about skunk odor.  (Sorry if I'm mistaken,
Arnold.)  By most first-hand accounts, skunk odor is highly aversive
only when one is a fairly direct beneficiary of the baptismal fluid
itself.  In my Midwest U.S. youth I've smelled hundreds of skunk
emissions, and only when I've been very close (e.g. to a recent road
kill) has it been particularly unpleasant.  Many of us backwoods hicks
think that the distant odor of skunks is a nice part of a summer
evening.  (I hereby invite the disdain of Big City diesel-sniffers.)  

So if it's aversiveness you're after, don't go for skunk odor per se.
In fact the aversiveness of the direct emission may not be a matter of
"odor" at all, any more than tear gas is aversive because of its odor.


Ron Amundson
U. of Hawaii at Hilo