Masking human scent on microphone windshields lets you place mics near scent-sensitive animals without disturbing them

Placing microphones close to wild animals introduces a non-acoustic disturbance: human scent left on the gear. Scent-sensitive species will detect and avoid recently handled equipment, so the sound source never appears. Watson’s countermeasure is to smear the windshields with a substance the animal already tolerates in its environment — for badgers around a sett, cow dung — which masks the human scent and lets the mic sit near the animal unnoticed. This complements, rather than replaces, the mechanical techniques (long cables, remote monitoring) used to keep the recordist away: even a perfectly silent, unattended mic can spook an animal purely by smell. The general principle is that a recordist must manage every sense the subject uses to detect intrusion, not only sound.

Examples

Watson smears cow dung on windshields when placing mics around a UK badger sett, because badgers ‘are very sensitive to human scent.’ The same logic extends to any species that avoids human-handled objects.

Assessment

Explain why long cables and remote monitoring alone may still fail to capture a scent-sensitive animal, and describe one field technique that addresses the remaining disturbance.