German police to use 'sniffer' vultures

German police are planning to use vultures to locate dead bodies that sniffer dogs can't reach.

Published: 9:18PM BST 16 May 2010

They will attach global positioning system tracking devices to birds and get them to find the corpses of people who have disappeared in remote areas.

Policeman Rainer Herrmann said: "It was a colleague of mine who got the idea from watching a nature programme.

"If it works, time could be saved when looking for dead bodies because the birds can cover a much vaster area than sniffer dogs or humans."

Vultures have a keen sense of smell and are able to detect the scent of rotting flesh from 3,000ft up in the air.

They can even remains in woodland or in thick undergrowth and cover vast tracts of land.

The first bird, Sherlock, is currently being trained to love the putrid smell of dead human flesh.

From: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/7730513/German-police-to-use-sniffer-vultures.html