ill unusual, perfumed lures - swatches of carpet that emit pungent scents - prove irresistible to bobcats? That's the question Emily Ruell, a University of Wisconsin graduate student, is attempting to answer.

As part of her master's work in wildlife ecology, Emily - with assistance from The Nature Conservancy - is using a novel wildlife monitoring technique to document the size, health, travel patterns and other data of the reserve's bobcat population. The lures - playfully nicknamed "hair snares" - are being placed on the ground in Weir Canyon and other areas in the reserve. Emily is hoping the snares' fragrance will entice bobcats to roll on them, unwittingly leaving behind fur combed loose by the stiff carpet material. The fur's DNA will be analyzed in the lab.

Emily hopes this "genotyping," as the process is known, will produce a fountain of knowledge about the bobcat population in a non-intrusive way, including number of males versus females and to what extent, if any, in-breeding is occurring. Nature Conservancy officials say bobcats and other large predators play important roles in maintaining balances in natural environments. Learning more about their status will help officials plan long-term wildlife management programs to sustain the reserve's system of delicate checks and balances among species.

The cats' keen sense of smell presents a challenge for the researchers: camouflaging their own scents which, if detected, could deter the bobcats from approaching the hair snares. "It's important that the bobcats don't detect human smells," Emily says, "so we're rubbing sage on ourselves, crunching up leaves and doing whatever we can to make sure we don't leave any traces" while in the field.