Legal Beagles

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Undeveloped Rodent Talents

True: Gerbils have been studied as drug-sniffers in Canada. Those Canadians!

In 1982, the _New York Times_ reported that the Canadian Ministry of Corrective Services commissioned a University of Toronto zoologist to conduct a pilot study to determine whether gerbils could be used to detect drugs at Canadian prisons and airports. As the _Times_ noted, before the project could actually be implemented, the gerbils were "accidentally given contaminated drinking water and died." Apparently, gerbils were never actually used to sniff drugs after the unfortunate end to the study.

The Canadians weren't the only ones to entertain the possibility of using gerbils to sniff out drugs -- or even explosives. Various United States agencies, including the DEA and the Customs Service, have considered, but discarded, the possibility of using the rodents this way.

Sources: "Furry Detectives Retired," _New York Times,_ September 21, 1982 at C3; Scott Armstrong, "Ersatz hounds sniff contraband at airport customs," _The Christian Science Monitor,_ May 24, 1983 at 18; Boris Weintraub, "When animals aid humans," _The Toronto Star,_ September 7, 1986 at B7; Roger Highfield, "Hi-tech devices can detect faint traces of bombs," _The Daily Telegraph,_ December 29, 1988 at 28; Frank Greve, "US agents are losing drug wars on the technology front," _Orange County Register,_ December 10, 1989 at K23; Douglas Jehl, "Scientists seek 'technological fix' for war on drugs," _Toronto Star,_ December 10, 1989 at B1.