The Rise and Fall of the Leeches Who Could Predict Weather | Atlas Obscura
And more about leeches …
Officials peered inside the man’s bags and found hundreds of containers filled with slimy, writhing objects—5,000 live leeches. It was October 17, 2018, and the trusty beagle had helped authorities snag Canada’s first known leech “smuggler.” (Authorities are calling him an alleged illegal leech importer, rather than a smuggler, because he wasn’t necessarily purposefully hiding the contraband.)
What do you do with 5000 leeches ?
When Canadian officials seized 5,000 leeches, they were immediately confronted with a problem: what to do with them? They didn’t want to kill the threatened animals—especially while the case remained under investigation. “Ultimately it’s up to the judge if he wants to view the leeches in person because they’re viewed as evidence,” Lupert says. Nor did the authorities want to be saddled with them long-term. These species aren’t endemic to Canada, so they shouldn’t be released into the wild, Lupert says.
Find out more from a story published in 2019 in National Geographic.
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Credit
Three women wading in a stream gathering leeches. Coloured aquatint by R. Havell, 1814, after G. Walker. Credit: Wellcome Collection. CC BY