
Luggage found stuffed with 5,000 leeches - pidu87
https://www.nationalgeographic.com/animals/2019/01/airport-luggage-stuffed-with-leeches/
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SmellyGeekBoy
What I don't get is why go to all the hassle and expense of smuggling them
when they could be bred locally? Surely the raising and breeding of leeches
isn't complicated?

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bausshf
Maybe because the cost of travel and breeding expenses were lower compared to
just doing the breeding in Canada.

Could also be the sales price which might be higher there than elsewhere.

I'm by no means an expert and it's just a guesstimate.

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dsfyu404ed
Possibly also regulation. I don't know how/if leech breeding is regulated but
if it is I suspect it's a lot easier to hide one suitcase than a breeding
operation.

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sudhirj
I personally hate the things - was bitten under my knee once and it was itchy
for three years - but they’re valuable enough to smuggle. Or “import” in this
case. $50k worth of product in this case.

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Faaak
What are they used for ?

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gambiting
The article explains it. They are used for getting rid of pooled blood and are
used for that purpose by legitimate hospitals and doctors. Obviously quack
medicine is also trying to sell them as something to use to get rid of "bad
blood" which is nonsense. But they do have legitimate medical uses.

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AllegedAlec
Hey, balancing the humors is important for health! Don't believe 'mainstream
medicine'!

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fb03
You forgot the /s mate ;)

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devereaux
The difference between pest and pets is often but a /s

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sudhirj
If your humours were better balanced you might have a better more balanced
sense of humour.

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schwartzworld
A heartwarming piece about how a police dog did it's duty and found something
unexpected. Cute, right?

Let's not forget that drug-sniffing dogs are trained to give positive
indicators. They don't sniff for drugs, they just give cops probable cause to
search your luggage if they want to.

This piece doesn't have the typical copaganda headline, but it's copaganda for
sure. Just saying.

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csomar
I disagree. The dogs would help reducing random searches or mass searching. So
it increases privacy. As far as I know, the dogs can't sit randomly or can't
count every tenth person to indicate.

The personnel in the airport have limited searching capability. So if dogs are
sending some people, it reduces your probability of getting searched.

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Vraxx
I'm not sure about that. I've seen that police dogs are capable of picking up
the bias of the officer(s) they accompany or are trained by due to body
language signals and training bias[0]. This can be worked against as the
article points out, but the fact that it is a problem has me uncertain that I
support their usage without widespread training and protocol that prevents
this issue (instead of limited training). Because the personnel in the airport
have limited searching capability _that fact_ reduces your probability of
being searched, the dogs then _increase_ your probability of being searched if
you are a victim of bias expressed by the officer and dog.

[0]: [https://www.npr.org/2017/11/20/563889510/preventing-
police-b...](https://www.npr.org/2017/11/20/563889510/preventing-police-bias-
when-handling-dogs-that-bite)

