What can run a feral cat off a fish truck and save a few trees in the process? It turns out that fox urine sprayed on pine trees is a front-line tool against tree-nabbing. When the University of Nebraska in Lincoln was faced with pine trees being stolen to be used as Christmas trees, they came up with a unique deterrent. A mixture of fox urine, glycerin, water and dye applied to the trees works like a charm. The spray freezes on the trees and is odorless outdoors, but the smell quickly becomes intolerable in the confines of a warm house. It’s as rancid as having cat urine all over your house, and the smell has been described as eye-watering. Now, every year, just after Thanksgiving, UNL douses all of its pine trees in fox urine. In the past, they typically lost 15-20 trees a year, but that number has dwindled down to about one or two, thanks to the fox urine.
