There’s some squirrely business going on at China’s border.
Police have “successfully trained” squirrels, as they do with dogs, to sniff out drugs along the border in southwest China’s Chongqing municipality, the Washington Post reported.
Yin Jin, a police dog trainer in the region, told state media that six Eurasian red squirrels were trained as an alternative to canine narcotics units.
The squirrel squad has been doing an “excellent job” during routine tests, Jin said. But since the yearslong process has been a tough nut to crack, they won’t be officially deployed for a while.
“It’s probably going to take some time,” Jin added.
A video, published by the state-sanctioned media outlet People’s Daily, shows the elite task force during one of their training exercises.
According to Jin, squirrels represent the animal kingdom’s best candidate for uncovering drugs since they possess an excellent sense of smell, can maneuver in small areas and can climb to heights that would be inaccessible to dogs.
“These squirrels have a rather keen sense of smell,” Jin said, adding that when the animals detect an illegal substance, they are trained to start scratching at it is to alert their handler.
While years of research were devoted to perfecting the process, many social media users have still found the idea a bit nutty.
News of these sniffer squirrels went viral on China’s popular microblogging site Weibo after the video was posted last week.
“What if the squirrel is addicted to drugs,” asked one user.
“Beware of stray cats,” joked another.
As of Tuesday, the People’s Daily video has been watched nearly 920,000 times.
The training of these squirrels comes as the country begins to enforce its zero-tolerance drug policy, which began last year.
