I was reading Kevin Robertson's excellent book "Africas Most Dangerous".

In a chapter about following wounded Cape Buffalo he stated that they gave off a distinct odor and recounts how he once located a wounded buff by the smell.

Has anyone else experienced this?

I have smelled buffalo while hunting them, and to me they smell quite similar to domestic cattle, but this is the first I've heard about a wounded buffalo giving off a different odor.

BH63

It would probably be me everyone would be smelling if I had to go after a wounded buff!

Surely the smell would depend on where it was hit and what fluids are leaking

If Kevin Robertson says they stink different I'm just gonna play it safe and assume they do.

quote:

Originally posted by Jefffive:
If Kevin Robertson says they stink different I'm just gonna play it safe and assume they do.

Do not believe all the bullshit you read!

The above post is the most likely explanation.

Kevin needs to recognize the difference between the smell of the farts from the lead tracker every time he hears a rustle or cracking twig and the sweaty bovine odour of a wounded buffalo.

Jokes aside, we once chanced to catch a whiff of and followed the festering smell of what turned out to be the buffalo the client had wounded and "lost" 10 days prior.

It had been a high gut shot which missed the vitals but caused blood and juices to build in the belly sack and after several days began oozing and was pretty pungent.

He was alive, not well and very pissed off.

Needless to say the client's demeanor changed from glum to overjoyed and his license duly amended to read "lost/found".

Such cases are however as common as winning the lottery so in general, comments such as those in the OP really hold true for the scavengers like Hyenas whose olfactory receptors can pick up a scent from miles away.

Kevin should maybe slow down with his theories else he might end up being re-christened to Kevin Capstick.

I wouldn't be so quick to discount it for some.

It has been known for quite some time that people can change their body odor based on stress, and some folks have a much more attuned sense of smell to certain things, and if he says can smell stress response in buffalo, I'm not going to say BS.

That being said, I have never noticed any such smell.

Different animals have different smells.

Buffalo smell like buffalo.

Some smell stronger than others.

Wounded buffalo smell different if they ar gut shot - same as any animal that is gut shot.

lf you Gent's don't mind, may l pop in an observation or two....

Mr Robertson of whom you speak is a VET l believe and will no doubt have spent considerable time around domestic cattle.
Now, there are some conditions that can cause cattle to smell differently to what would be described as normal. One being when a cow goes down with milk fever, it emits a sweet smell to it's breath and skin, and an animal that has a renal/liver disorder can smell extremely pungent indeed.
And, has been said earlier an animal that has been wounded and left to wander in the heat may also be detectable by the beginnings of it's decay.
l've been around some very truculent cattle in the past and once had to dispute my own existence with an extremely pissed off Limousan Bull at point blank range, for which l'd not time to "Wake up and Smell the Coffee!!" so to speak.
So l'm not disputing either way as to the claim that a Buff' can get stinky or not.... l'd just not like to put it to the test from three feet away while it's still breathing.

^
I believe he did say there was a "sweet" type of smell involved, certainly not the smell of decay, which most people would recognize right off.

Since buff are said to secrete quite a bit of adrenalin when wounded, I wonder if that affects their odor?

BTW The book Africa's Most Dangerous is absolutely the best read I have ever seen when it comes to buffalo hunting (my apologies to C. Boddington for his excellent book Buffalo!).

It covers in depth, almost every topic of hunting the Cape Buffalo. Just reading it makes me want to book another hunt.

BH63

I have to relate an incident that I witnessed several years back. I had brain shot a hippo in a short river draining into the Indian ocean in Mozambique. This was a small, 50 ft across stream. The problem hippo was shot late in the afternoon in the water and sank immediately. Due to the fact that all the stomach contents had been vacated by that time in the afternoon the hippo remained submerged for a few hours. After two hours I became concerned that maybe I had not killed the bull. Just then a macorro showed up with two natives from a 3 mile downstream village. They came to the exact spot where we had shot the hippo and claimed as they scooped up water and smelled it that there was a "dead", not wounded, hippo that they had smelled three miles down stream and it was right under this spot. If that wasn't enough, about 40 minutes later a macorro appeared with two more natives from five miles down stream that told us the same story and said the dead hippo was directly under their boat. It got too late for us to return to camp with our macorro, after having a bull come out of the water directly in front of the canoe. We then walked back in the dark the two miles to camp. The next morning we were greeted by five macorros tied together paddling hard to bring the huge animal to our camp. It is incredible to me the natural instincts of these natives. In this case the natives claimed that a dead hippo gives off a sent when it is killed and they could smell it even five miles downstream. I don't know how many parts per million that would be, but it couldn't be many. So, yes, some animals give off smells when they are wounded or killed.

Jim

Perhaps if you live in the bush long enough you can smell things us westerners no longer can. Maybe our deodorant,perfume and all the other shit we spray around screws up our sense of smell.

I’ve witnessed something similar with Bushman trackers in Namibia. They would sometimes pick up the scent of certain animals and find that particular specie of animal. It was quite special to have the privilege of watching them work.

Another incident in which I was amazed by their abilities. I was sitting in the kitchen of the farmhouse having a cup of coffee. There was a bushman working around the house. He came running to tell me that we need to take the bakkie to pick up the hunter and his animal. He had heard the shot, told me the kudu was shot in the neck and knew the exact location of the downed animal just by the sound. Remarkable!

Bakes.

l wouldn't know how much damage folks do to their olfactory systems with all the crap they can spray on themselves these days, l just know that once a smell has a significance it can linger as a memory to be recalled later.

Two things that have a distinctive scent: a rattlesnake and a hellgramite (dobsonfly larva)

I shot a buff in Tanz. that must have eaten too much new green grass an gotten the scoots, his entire butt was covered in splattered on green manure all the way from spine down his legs to his hooves. That SOB's belly was swollen up to bursting with gases....did not take long for pictures with him.

You likely won't believe this but when I was younger I was an avid and I mean REALLY avid steelhead fisherman. I chased them up and down the pacific coast. Sometimes I could smell when fish had entered a pool in the river. It might sound crazy but I've met others who said the same.

Ok, my last before someone demands to ducking stool for me....

How many look, without seeing what is in front of them.
There are those who listen, without actually hearing.
Many touch, but never really feel what they are holding.
We all breath, though plenty never take the time to understand and recognise the smells around them.

We are all cavemen in a modern age, sometimes l believe that these technologies we think are advancing our abilities, knowledge and achievements are really retarding our basic instincts, to appreciate what is around us and the world in which we live.

I would guess that if you are tracking an animal and all of a sudden there is a strong smell it would be best to keep full alert.I remember tracking a really nice buff for four days and the only time we got a quick glance of him was the instant we got a strong urine scent.

Kevin Capstick! Heck that is a serious frontal brain shot Fulvio! Sure hope you're not serious!
The point I was trying to make in my book Africa's Most Dangerous is that on a wounded buffalo follow-up you have to rely on all your senses. The trackers I hunted with over the years were incredible 'bushmen' - and far more attuned to that environment than I ever was. I did notice however their sense of smell was different to mine. Just about all of them smoked a lot, rough unrefined tobacco rolled into newsprint cigarettes. Over time I began to suspect this affected their sense of smell. On leopard hunts there would invariably be the foul-smelling 'gut bucket' on the back of the Landcruiser - so putrid clients would wretch when getting a whiff - and yet this smell did not seem to bother the trackers at all who sat next to it for hours on end.
On one occasion we were very close to a wounded, lung-shot buffalo, so close we could hear his labored breathing but so dense was the bush he remained invisible. I could definitely smell him but my trackers could not. Thinking back, the 'sweet' odor described was probably blood and a bucket full of adrenalin.
The buffalo rumen lies on the animal's left hand side. LHS going away backing shots often hit this huge internal organ. Rumen content has a distinct smell, as does the methane gas produced by the rumen's fermentation process. If a rumen-punctured bull goes down on its right side and if the rumen-wound is uppermost, fermentation gas may well escape from it - and be smelt.
On a hunt in the Sapi Safari Area, the previous hunting party wounded and lost a buffalo bull. About a week later were just walking along and heard some oxpeckers so headed in that direction. Before we saw them I got the distinct smell of rumen gas - and sure enough there was a dead buffalo bull - so recently dead the oxpeckers were still on him. He had been shot in the rumen, and was lying stretched out on his right hand side with his rumen seriously bloated. The gas was escaping from the bullet hole into his rumen! I have often pondered what would have happened had we just bumped into that bull a day or so earlier when he was still alive and obviously pissed off!

quote:

We are all cavemen in a modern age, sometimes l believe that these technologies we think are advancing our abilities, knowledge and achievements are really retarding our basic instincts, to appreciate what is around us and the world in which we live.

True, I think, but not irreverseable. Human senses are adaptable. Spend some time in the wild lands and gradually a persons attunes to that environment.

You can smell the presence of Buffalo when you either cross an area they have recently passed through or you find yourself downwind and inhaling the full fragrance of their shit, piss and sweat.

quote:

Kevin Capstick! Heck that is a serious frontal brain shot Fulvio! Sure hope you're not serious!

I did add" "Jokes aside"

All in jest and no offense intended.

I did also refer to my one and only experience of having found a wounded/lost Buffalo shot through the gut almost 10 days after following the stench of dribbles and gas emitted from the bullet hole.

We were lucky to find him only because of the dire shortage of Hyenas in the area.

I'd be surprised if they didn't smell different after being wounded, charged full of adrenaline and then exerting themselves running away. Not to mention being pissed off!

Whether you or I could smell the difference...that's a different story.

The original post stated wounded buffalo smell different.

ALL wounded buffalo.

Which is just plain wrong.

Any animal gut shot will smell different.

I'll venture an opinion that all wounded buffalo DO smell different. But it probably takes a highly sensitive nose to detect the difference between wounded and healthy in many instances. I know for certain that any tracking dog worth the name could pick out a wounded animals trail versus an unwounded one. I have seen dogs do this many times. People don't have a dogs sense of smell, but do very a lot in ability. I don't find it unreasonable to think that someone with better olfactory senses than mine could detect a wounded buffalo, but I probably couldn't unless it was a rumen hit as previously noted.

I have a good idea. Before venturing off to Africa one should have one or two doses of chemotherapy, the type that takes your hair out, which from personal experience really thins out the lining of the nose (and uncomfortably other areas of the body) and gives you an extremely heightened sense of smell. I wondered whether what I experienced was how animals do smell things. Food cooking, fresh bread, deodorants, scent etc., were all quite overpowering in intensity. Even my own skin had a quite strong metallic like odour to me and yet others couldn't smell anything different.

I didn't get out hunting while undergoing the chemotherapy treatment (couldn't because of the danger of infection) but I have often thought it would be good to be able to pick up the smell of animals at greater distances than we usually can.

quote:

Originally posted by Saeed:
The original post stated wounded buffalo smell different.

ALL wounded buffalo.

Which is just plain wrong.

Any animal gut shot will smell different.

I went back and reread that section of the book, and if I may quote"

"Buffalo have a smell, especially wounded buffalo".

So the title of my OP might have been slightly misleading (even though it was in the form of a question, not a statement).

My apologies to the author.

BH63

That is really interesting Eagle27. I have taken care of many patients undergoing chemo therapy in my past life. While I have had many describe many unusual sensations, I never heard of a heightened sense of smell. I am out the medical business now, I am going to ask some old associates if they ever heard that.

While I can't prove it, I have zero doubt that a wounded animal would smell different. To a human it would depend of how acute your sense of smell is and whether it was used to the smell of buffalo. For instance, my son, Adam, does not like Indian food. Why, I asked, and he told me that the spices in the food came out in his sweat and he could smell himself for days. He also is very good on wines.

quote:

Originally posted by impala#03:
That is really interesting Eagle27. I have taken care of many patients undergoing chemo therapy in my past life. While I have had many describe many unusual sensations, I never heard of a heightened sense of smell. I am out the medical business now, I am going to ask some old associates if they ever heard that.

Yes would be interesting if others have found this too. I had assumed the smell of my skin was due to the chemo drugs diffusing out of my skin which it may have been but others couldn't smell anything. Glad to say everything returned to normal after chemo stopped, while maybe handy to have a good sense of smell for hunting purposes I wouldn't want to live with it all the time.

As for humans, several decades ago I studied Muay Thai (Thai kickboxing) with a friend of mine who had turned pro.

About midway through our sparring sessions he would start stinking something terrible.

I never noticed this odor when we were just working out, no matter how hot and sweaty we became, only after we had started sparring (we hit and kicked fairly hard when sparring).

Could that be adrenalin?

BH63

Not sure about the original question, but I believe a charging Cape Buffalo creates a very distinctive smell in the shorts of the hunter :-)

Can't say a thing about Cape Buffalo. Never seen one shot or wounded. However have been smelling Mule Deer and Elk for 45 years or so and can very many times rely on that for location, including after the shot as the scent changes. Yes, all animals smell differently after an Adrenalin or hormone dump into the bloodstream and likely when an animal is wounded, this happens. (You been around any teenagers?) Maybe you can smell it, maybe you can't. But they do smell differently. That is why trained dogs can detect cancer as reliably as "normal" biological testing does.

Two comments:

1. If you smell them, the wind is right;

2. Speaking for myself, I smell when I'm stressed. You can dress me up in a suit and apply any amount of antiperspirant, but if I have a particularly difficult argument to make and am stressed, you'll never see it,not even a bead of perspiration, but I stink. I can smell it. I wouldn't be surprised if an animal under stress smelled differently as well. Most of us don't have the olfactory talents to sense it. Fortunately, most judges don't either.

Can't speak for buffalo, but certainly for deer. A well trained dog can easily differentiate between a shot and wounded deer and the rest of the herd. Appreciate that a dog has a much better sense of smell than people, but some people do have a very well developed sense of smell - probably a combination of both inherent ability but also through training. Most hunters spot deer as they are driving along the road - most non hunters cannot. A good sommelier can distinguish different vintages and vinyards, whereas most of us can tell a good wine from a bad one and even a claret from a rioja.

And go into a hospital and you can smell the sickness.

So I have no doubt that a wounded buff will smell different to unwounded, and somebody who has an acute sense of smell and has the experience will be able to tell the difference.

But it can also add to the PH's glamour!!!

When one follows buffalo, wounded or not, sometimes one can smell them.

And unless the wounded buffalo is gut shot, one does smell a buffalo as they go along.

Most likely it is the one being followed, not always true, but could be.

Gut shot buffalo does have a different smell, as one smells the gut content.

I don't want to have to get close enough to a wounded cape buffalo to smell him whether the smell was because of my shooting him or not! Just close enough to shoot him a couple of times again!
…………………………………………………………….

What Saeed said. In addition, if a buffalo is nervous when you're tracking it (as they know they're being closely tracked/followed) their shizz often shows that nervousness, being more liquid and loose, and that can add to their smell. Was told and shown that by one of my PH's and his trackers while hunting in the BVC.

As an aside, as a teenager I worked in a packing house.

One of my duties was to drive cattle and hogs down chutes from the holding pens to the kill floor.

There was one spot where the animals would always halt (and sometimes go berserk). This was near the entrance to the kill floor.

Older workers always told me the animals could smell "death" at that point.

I always thought it was the smell of blood, but maybe they were right.

BH63