Oh man, we’ve all been here, right? You break into a car, just about certain that the chemical-labeled boxes inside will contain the ingredients to sweet, sweet meth, but instead you find you’ve just stolen a ton of foul-smelling stoat anal gland secretions? Oh, it’s a story as old as time itself, and it’s happened again, in Wellington, New Zealand.
The New Zealand Herald reports this break-in occurred, as you’d expect for a country in the southern hemisphere, in a ute. This ute was owned by the conservation company Goodnature, which is focused on preventing biodiversity decline caused by invasive species. Basically, animals from outside New Zealand that are forcing out New Zealand’s native species. The stoat, or short-tailed weasel, is one of these species, and it has anal glands. More on this soon.
The thieves broke into the ute because they could see a box inside that was marked in a way that made it clear it was full of chemicals. The thieves hoped or assumed these chemicals would be great for making meth, but they forgot that the concept of “chemicals” includes things like the incredibly foul-smelling secretions of stoat anal-gland oil.
Which is what the box had. Sixteen experimental vials of vile stoat anal secretions that were part of a research project on high-powered attractants for stoat traps.
Of this ass-oil, the Goodnature company director had this to say:
“Stoat anal gland oil is extremely smelly stuff and it lingers on any fabric or surface.”
and also:
“We popped a gland in our lab a couple of years ago during research. We had fans running and windows open in the middle of a Wellington winter, and it still took weeks to go. Some staff chose to work from home for a couple of days.”
Just a few drops of this stuff on anything will make it stink for weeks. In fact, the oil is so awful the reason it was in the ute at all was because it was so potent, it was being moved off-site for storage.
Maybe it stinks so bad, it’ll actually get you high? I guess the anal-juice purloiners can hope for that.