Citation

Harvey LM, Harvey JW. J. Forensic Sci. 2003; 48(4): 811-816.

Affiliation

Victor Valley College, Department of Biology, Victorville, CA 92392, USA.

Copyright

(Copyright © 2003, American Society for Testing and Materials, Publisher John Wiley and Sons)

DOI

unavailable

PMID

12877298

Abstract

Anecdotal evidence and legend have suggested that bloodhounds are capable of trailing and alerting to a human by his or her individual scent. This same evidence may be presented to a court of law in order to accuse a particular suspect or suspects of a crime. There is little to no scientific evidence confirming the bloodhound's ability to trail and discriminate the scent of different individual humans. Eight bloodhounds (3 novice and 5 veteran), trained in human scent discrimination were used to determine the reliability of evidence, garnered through the use of bloodhounds, in a court of law. These dogs were placed on trails in an environment that simulated real-life scenarios. Results indicate that a veteran bloodhound can trail and correctly identify a person under various conditions. These data suggest that the potential error rate of a veteran bloodhound-handler team is low and can be a useful tool for law enforcement personnel.

Language: en