Who Pees in the Woods?

While out turkey hunting the other day I noticed something about five feet from where I was seated in my place of concealment. 

Adjacent to a white spruce and in a worn whitetail trail was what looked for all the world like blue pee in the snow.  Instead of the normal yellow pee stain you would expect to find on a deer trail - this was blue.  Yup, blue! 

I looked around thinking one of the trees or shrubs had blue berries remaining on the branches.  Nope.  Everyone knows spruce don't have berries. 

Maybe a bird was eating a berry and dropped in in the snow creating the blue stain?  Nope.  The stain had no berries or parts of berries - just a consistent blue stain.

Stumped, I took some photos and after returning home emailed them to a pal who is a certified biologist with the UW-Madison Department of Forest and Wildlife Ecology.  I asked if it is possible for deer urine to be blue.  She was stumped too - but only initially.  Her reply included the following:

Very interesting! I did some looking on line and I think u are right.  Deer were eating the juniper berries.  Check out the following article about rabbits and juniper berries.  I learned something new today, thanks!

You can learn more about this interesting phenomenon here. 

The $1,000 question is can I convince my deer hunting pals to replicate this in a human trial?

Stay tuned....