Can't squirrel away drugs from these sniffing rodents

China's first batch of six trained sniffer squirrels will begin work soon.

Trained by the police dog training department of the Hechuan District Criminal Police Detachment in southwest China's Chongqing Municipality, the six rodents are Eurasian red squirrel, Chongqing police revealed on Tuesday.

The sniffer squirrels' trainer, Yi Jin, was a police dog trainer. In 2018, Yi was invited to national key R&D projects on sniffer animals' training methods and sniffer squirrel breeding. The projects were successful and a batch of sniffer squirrels was trained, who can be used to sniff out drugs.

Squirrels actually have an excellent sense of smell. Using self-developed training system on rodents, the results were just as successful as on dogs. The sniffer squirrels can quickly recognize targeted drugs, Yi said in an interview.

The Eurasian red squirrels have a rather small build but are very fast. They can be tasked to sniff out drugs in complex areas such as logistics warehouses, courier stations, and high-altitude places.

When drugs are sniffed out, the squirrels scratch the trainer to alert him.