The Economics of Everyday Things: Animal Urine

Zachary Crockett (0:04)

Hey there, Freakonomics Radio Network subscribers. My name is Zachary Crockett. I'm the host of a new podcast from the Freakonomics Radio Network. It's called The Economics of Everyday Things. Each episode explores the hidden side of the things around us. We tackle questions like, how much do sports teams spend on mascots? And what's the value of a Michelin star to a newly awarded restaurant?

I'm obsessed with questions like those. And I hope you find the answers as surprising as I do. We want to share with you an episode that we recently did about the thriving market for something you might not think has any value at all. Hope you enjoy it. And if you'd like to hear more, look for the economics of everyday things in your podcast app.

On a recent Monday morning, I found myself comparing aromatic notes with a true connoisseur of sorts.

Ken Johnson (1:03)

When you're in this business, you have a lot of opportunities to smell things. They each have a very unique aroma.

I've often thought to describe it the way wine is described. Mountain lion is my favorite. It has a very unique burnt umber smell. The wolf has the darkest color. The smell is rich and it has, I would say, notes of earth.

Zachary Crockett (1:36)

You make it sound so great.

Ken Johnson (1:39)

Well, I can't help it, you know, in a crude way. To me, it's the smell of money.

Zachary Crockett (1:46)

This expert smeller, his name is Ken Johnson. But in certain circles, he goes by a different moniker.

Ken Johnson (1:54)

Well, I'm known as the P-Man. I started and operate predatorp.com.

Zachary Crockett (2:00)

Johnson sells a product that is generated every day in huge quantities.

Most of us think of it as waste. But where one man sees animal urine, another man sees treasure.

Ken Johnson (2:17)

It's really the ultimate recycling. You take something that would normally be just disposed of and put it to work in a way that's natural.

Zachary Crockett (2:29)

For the Freakonomics Radio Network, this is the economics of everyday things. I'm Zachary Crockett. Today, animal urine.

As a kid in New Jersey, Ken Johnson loved the outdoors. The first chance he got, he moved to one of America's most rugged states to study forestry at the University of Maine. After school, he stayed up there. He found his way into the ad business and eventually started his own marketing firm.

But in the mid-1980s, he took on a client closer to his interests. It was a little company called Foggy Mountain Hunting Sense and Lures. Foggy Mountain was run by a local hunter named Wayne Bosowitz.

Ken Johnson (3:10)

He was everything you would expect in a bear hunting guide, all right? He was big, he was rugged.

Zachary Crockett (3:17)

Bosowitz's company filled a critical need.

Ken Johnson (3:23)

In the hunting world, you want to get close to the game animal you're hunting. The way you do that is you either attract the animal or you camouflage your human scent.

Zachary Crockett (3:35)

A white-tailed deer has around 300 million olfactory sensors.

Its sense of smell is 60 times stronger than ours. That means the deer can usually smell you before you've seen it. To solve that problem, Bosowitz enlisted an age-old hunting trick. He doused himself with animal pee. And not just any animal pee. It had to be something that didn't scare the deer away.

Ken Johnson (4:02)

Foxes are naturally occurring animals in the same territory as a deer. But they're not a predator of a deer. So deer, when they smell a fox, there's no concern.

Hunters use fox urine on their clothing and they can get closer to the deer. Now the more inventive hunters will use something as strong as skunk essence.

Zachary Crockett (4:28)

Basowitz started bottling animal pee in mayonnaise jars and selling it at trade shows.

When he eventually decided to sell the company in 1986, Johnson saw an opportunity to expand. And with a little financial backing, he took over. At first, the business catered to hunters. Then Johnson began to notice something strange. He was getting a ton of orders outside of hunting season. He called one of his customers and asked what was up.

Ken Johnson (4:58)

He said, oh yeah, everybody around here uses it to keep rabbits out of their garden. That's a light bulb moment. I realized that urine is a communications player in the wild.

It's how wild animals find a mate. It's how they protect their territory. And it's how they detect the predator.

Zachary Crockett (5:21)

As it turned out, Johnson's entry into the animal pee business was well-timed.