German police recognised
a tool that could assist them in speeding up criminal investigations.
To date dogs have been used
in similar tracking exercises.
Trained sniffer dogs such as bloodhounds are highly effective
in tracking and remembering scents, but they need to take
frequent breaks and can only scour 100 square metres per
day, or even less if the terrain is difficult.
Now
they are training Turkey Vultures to locate fabric
containing the scent of dead or suspected murder victims. |
|
‘Vultures can fly over many square
kilometres. They could make police work much more efficient,’
according to an expert on forensic science and technology
at the Lower Saxony criminal police force. ‘It would
take the birds just a few hours to cover areas that would
take dogs days.’
Under the plan, tracking devices would be
attached to the vultures so that they could be traced by
police.
The one potential disadvantage is that the vultures are
likely to start picking at corpses that they find. This
is after all dinner.
And, bigger vultures like the King Vulture
and Black Vulture, who do not have a sense of smell, have
learnt that all they need do is follow the Turkey Vulture
who is sure to lead them to the dinner table.
But German Alonso, who is training the first
police vulture, aptly named Sherlock, is undeterred.
‘That will happen and you can’t
stop it but they won’t remove the entire corpse, they
can’t eat that much. And if they take a nibble, what
the hell, the victim will be beyond help anyway. Besides,
the transmitters will enable police to get to the scene
quickly,’ he said.
