It appears that the South Korean authorities don’t altogether trust the organisers of the Paris Olympics to ensure that the accommodation they provided to the Olympians were free of bedbugs. And in order to ensure that no South Korean Olympians return to their country carrying bedbugs they have employed a specialist bedbug sniffer dog to give them a once over to make sure they are all clear. It’s a bit of a slap in the face for the Parisians, isn’t it?
Ceco a sniffer beagle employed to check for bedbugs carried by returning Olympians to South Korea by Michael BroadIt appears that a story had been circulating before the Olympics that Paris was infested with bedbugs. Bedbugs had been found in Parisian hotels and holiday flats. There were videos of the parasites roaming around public transport and in cinemas where they were shared on social media last year.
Experts dismissed the hype as hysteria while others were concerned about Paris’s readiness for the Olympics. Some people suggested that it was Russia spreading disinformation to weaken President Macron’s position in the lead up to the European elections.
The super-dog employed is a two-year-old beagle called Ceco. He has a brain area for detecting pheromone scent specific to bedbugs that is about 40 times larger than in humans, a spokesperson for Cesco said. This makes his detection of bedbugs scent over 95% accurate.
Ceco can sweep a hotel room in less than two minutes according to the pest control firm Cesco.
The Times reports that a bed bug outbreak occurred in South Korea in October last year. There were videos circulating on the Internet of bedbugs at hotels, on trains and in bathhouses which sparked a disinformation campaign. It appears that the South Korean authorities are very sensitive about the presence of bedbugs.
South Koreans achieved an impressive haul of 13 gold medals, which as I recall placed them just behind Great Britain although Great Britain achieved 65 medals in total which put them third in the Paris Olympics medal list. Britain was seventh overall based on the primary criteria which is gold medals.
Ceco was on duty at the Incheon airport which is about 20 miles outside Seoul.
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Cats
In the interests of complete equality between species 😎😉, I’m told that there have been some interesting trials involving sniffer cats. My research indicates that a trial took place at Papua New Guinea’s April River Airport. The airport explored the possibility of using cats instead of dogs sniffing out contraband. We know that cats have a highly developed sense of smell which is far more sensitive than for humans with around 200 million scent receptors which apparently is more than most dog breeds but generally speaking dogs have much more sensitive noses than cats. And of course, dogs can be trained more easily than cats. I think that is the major reason why dogs are used at airports and other locations to carry out their most valuable tasks. Would you trust a cat to sniff out illegal goods at an airport? I certainly would because cats can be trained but it’s just less good than for dogs. So why do it?
For completeness, my research indicates that cats have about 200 million olfactory receptors compared to over 300 million in dogs. The area of a cat’s olfactory epithelium which is where odour receptors are located is about 5.8 cm² while in dogs it can be over 150 cm². Cats are estimated to be able to detect odours at concentrations 10-100 times lower than humans. Cats as we all know are excellent hunters and they use their sense of smell for hunting, territorial marking and social communication. And cats have that famous specialised organ in the roof of their mouth called the vomeronasal organ through which they sniff the air allowing it to pass over this organ to detect minute amounts of odour.
