Do activated carbon suits fool the nose?
Scent Lok has claimed that their suits remove enough human perspiration odors from a person wearing their suits that deer cannot smell a person wearing their suits. They have also claimed that deer smell better than dogs.
Research shows that deer have up to 297 million olfactory receptors in the nose, plus a vomeronasal organ (that detects scents/odors) in the room of their mouth. Dogs have up to 220 million olfactory receptors in the nose, plus a vomeronasal organ. Humans have up to 5 million olfactory receptors in the nose, but no vomeronasal organ.
If the number of olfactory receptors in the nose of an animal is any indication of its ability to detect scents, then deer have a better sense of smell than dogs, and could have detected the humans wearing activated carbon suits in the Shivik study.
In a test with search dogs, by JA Shivik, Ph.D., forty-two people were hidden from Colorado search and rescue dogs. Twenty-one of the people wore activated carbon suits; twenty-one did not. The dogs found all twenty-one people who didn't wear activated carbon suits, and twenty of the people who wore activated carbon suits. There was no noticeable difference in the time it took the dogs to find the humans. It took the dogs 2.7 minutes to detect the humans who were not wearing activated carbon suits, and 3.4 minutes to find the humans who were wearing activated carbon suits.
Shivik's report states, "That the dogs detected humans wearing the suit indicates that the system failed to prevent detection of human odors." Since deer have a sense of smell equal to if not better than dogs, it is safe to assume that deer would have detected the humans too.
The report adds, "The suits are probably not worth the cost to researchers or managers who want to approach canids undetected." They probably aren't worth $150 to $300 to hunters either, if they can't keep deer from detecting the hunters. You can view this article at this address
http://www.aphis.usda.gov/ws/nwrc/is/annpub2002.html, by scrolling down to report number "02-93 Shivik" and downloading the PDF file.
They do not work>>>>
I'll bet you took other precautions too - like showirng etc, before you hunted.
You probably would have had the bucks nearby without the suit.