"Hunter is one of the beagles utilized by the U.S. Department of Customs and Border Protection to sniff out unauthorized fruits and vegetables in the bags of travelers arriving at LAX."
Posted on 02/20/2005 1:20:21 PM PST by Ramonan
Snuffling among the bags coming into Los Angeles International Airport, Hunter went right to work, searching for hidden contraband.
Almost immediately, he sat down next to a bag and pointed at it with his nose to alert his handler. With a little prodding, the passenger, who had just disembarked from a flight from Taiwan, produced the forbidden item.
An apple.
It's not your typical contraband, but then Hunter isn't your typical search dog.
About a foot tall, with floppy ears and a sweet disposition, he's a member of the Beagle Brigade, a team of dogs and handlers charged with patrolling airports to protect the multibillion-dollar U.S. agriculture industry. Beagle Brigade dogs sniff out about 75,000 hidden food items each year, each one a potential time bomb for growers.
Many international passengers don't realize that the seemingly harmless food they tuck into their bags could devastate local growers, Waite said. Fighting imported pests and diseases such as Mediterranean fruit flies, citrus canker and exotic Newcastle disease has already cost tens of millions of dollars.
"These are not theoretical threats," said Dave Kranz, a spokesman for the California Farm Bureau. "These are actual threats to farms and ranches."
For Hunter, the job is literally a second chance at life. The 5-year-old beagle was rescued from a shelter to be trained as a detection dog.
All of the program's 130 detector dogs stationed at 21 international airports were either rescued from shelters or donated by breeders.
(Excerpt) Read more at dailynews.com ...
The Beagle Brigade in Chicago caught me with a couple of apples from London one time! I didn't even realize I still had them. They are so cute, very serious about their job too.
"Hunter is one of the beagles utilized by the U.S. Department of Customs and Border Protection to sniff out unauthorized fruits and vegetables in the bags of travelers arriving at LAX."
""Hunter is one of the beagles utilized by the U.S. Department of Customs and Border Protection to sniff out unauthorized fruits and vegetables in the bags of travelers arriving at LAX."
great. now if we can get them to sniff out non-airport purchased food, they can further raise the already incredibly high prices in the food court !!
Clearly, these must be some special breed of Beagles with brains. My Beagle is about the dumbest creature God ever put on the planet.
I saw a documentary on these beagles; They get beagles from pounds and shelters; only 1 out of 10 passes the training.....
Someone correct me if I am wrong, but isn't the Beagle Brigade a part of the U.S. Department of Agriculture, Animal and Plant Health Inspection Service (APHIS) and not U.S. Customs? I think APHIS is now a part of Homeland Security but I believe it is still separate from Customs which have their own drug dogs. I was in APHIS when the Beagle Brigade was formed in the mid 1980s at Los Angelos airport but a lot of water and time has passed under that bridge.
Muleteam1
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