Those trying to smuggle wildlife parts into the US now have to battle a new class of unlikely soldiers - dogs!
The US Fish and Wildlife Service has trained four dogs to sniff out if someone is smuggling illegal wildlife parts such as elephant ivory and rhino horn into the country.
The first class of 'wildlife detector dogs' and their handlers have graduated this week from training in searching for protected species.
In coming weeks, they will be stationed at key ports of entry around the country, searching for wildlife smuggled across US borders.
The four retrievers - named Viper, Butter, Lancer and Locket - have been trained as part of the country's effort to stem the growing trade in threatened animal parts.
"The recent rapid growth in the global trade in protected wildlife is pushing some species perilously close to extinction. Elephant and rhino populations in particular are declining at alarming rates," said Fish and Wildlife Service Office of Law Enforcement Deputy Chief Ed Grace.
"The battle to stop wildlife smuggling is one we simply cannot afford to lose, and using dogs and their phenomenal sense of smell to catch smugglers will give us a real leg up in this effort," Grace said in a statement.
The use of dogs in law enforcement in US isn't new. Dogs are already used to detect illegal fruits and food products, bombs and drugs. Some have even been trained to track down pythons that are invading Florida's Everglades. Training dogs to find smuggled wildlife products was the next step.
The four graduating dogs and their Service Wildlife Inspector-Handlers completed the 13-week training course at the US Department of Agriculture's National Detector Dog Training Center in Newnan, Georgia.
The center normally trains detector dogs to sniff out fruits and plants to interdict potential insects or diseases that could hurt US agriculture.
