Luise (wild boar)

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Wild boar Luise with the Lower Saxony police badge , around 1986

Luise (* July 5, 1984 ; † April 18, 1998 ) was a wild boar that was trained and used from 1984 to 1987 by the Lower Saxony police as an addictive animal for drugs and explosives . A service dog handler in Hildesheim had trained the brooks in the same way as drug detection dogs . Luise was the world's first pig in police service and was therefore included in the Guinness Book of Records . The remarkable search performance of the fully grown wild boar weighing 150 kg was only rarely used in police operations . Luise's merit was the image promotion for the benefit of the police at events and television appearances. In 2008, Luise was included in the book The Most Famous Animals in the World .

Life

Search services

Luise searching, her guide motivates her through closeness and acceptance, around 1985
Luise digging up large holes in the ground, around 1985

Luise was born in the Sottrum amusement park near Hildesheim. There she was taken over by the first police chief inspector Werner Franke, who had set up the service dog system for the Lower Saxony police, as a three-week-old freshman. He wanted to check whether wild boars with their extraordinary smell , like dogs, are suitable as addictive substance detection animals for the police force. Chief Inspector Franke had noticed the disadvantage of sniffer dogs that they in hot weather to Panting come and search no more. Wild boars, on the other hand, constantly show a pronounced digging instinct, as they naturally look for food in the ground. It was clear from the start that a wild boar, as an addictive animal, could only be a complement to service dogs. Because of its physical size, a wild boar could only be used for search purposes in the outdoor area, where drug dealers occasionally store addictive substances in underground depots.

The freshman Luise was trained to track down drugs such as hashish , cocaine and heroin as early as the first few months of his life . In the second year of life, the training was extended to sniffing out 15 different types of explosives (commercial and military as well as self-laboratories). With her sense of smell, Luise was able, under favorable search conditions (warm weather, loose soil), to find two deeply buried hiding spots with drugs or explosives, even if they were in a dung heap. She was also able to locate these substances in suitcases, boxes or other containers.

Social behavior

Luise belonged to the service dog division in Hildesheim , which was affiliated with the " Police Training Center for Technology and Traffic Lower Saxony " (PATVN). The sense of family of wild boars was beneficial for accommodation in the service dog team. Luise's kennel was in line with the service dogs they accepted. Luise had a friendly relationship with her guide's service dog, a Rottweiler , from the start.

Media coverage and popularity

After the first press report in the Hildesheimer Allgemeine Zeitung in March 1985, national and international media took on the unusual addictive animal of the German police. Specialized newspapers in the USA and the Soviet Union reported on Luise's traces. The police's internal magazine Our Safety of the Lower Saxony Ministry of the Interior praised the animal and its image promotion for the police. Luise became a crowd puller at public events and police shows in Lower Saxony, but also throughout Germany, with her tracing performance. Among other things, she performed on New Year's Eve 1985/86 at a gala evening at the Hanover Opera House , where she gave an intermezzo as a star guest . The tabloid press increased the nationwide popularity by reporting with sensational presentations, such as “The police are on the loose”. Newspaper reports about Luise soon appeared on every continent. The publicity generated a plethora of positive headlines for the police.

The intensive public relations work with her many appointments hindered Luise's practical police work. During her short period of service, she was only used to search for drugs in police operations in four cases, in which she found what she was looking for twice in the areas of Celle and Bramsche .

Official employment

Despite the enormous popularity, the police leadership in the Lower Saxony Ministry of the Interior urged Luise's guide and trainer to take the animal out of service in April 1985. The presence of the wild boar in police-owned properties was prohibited, and public appearances were prohibited. A senior Interior Ministry police officer said in a newspaper interview that the wild boar experiment is ministerially regarded as a private hobby of the dog handler and:

"There has never been a pig in the police service and never will be."

The scandal sparked a wave of indignation in the media, in which, among other things, members of the Lower Saxony state parliament campaigned for Luise. The parliamentary group of the Greens also expressed solidarity with the wild boar - their spokesman, Jürgen Trittin , announced:

“The Greens are opposed to Luise being removed from the police force. The Greens strongly advocate: pigs in the police force. "

In June 1985, the Prime Minister of Lower Saxony, Ernst Albrecht , gave a word of power . He decided that the pig would officially be accepted into the police force, although there were no internal police regulations or budget funds for this species . From then on, Luise was listed as a police resource under the name “Spürwildschwein” (SWS) by decree of the Ministry of the Interior.

Appearances

Police officer Werner Franke as Luise's guide and instructor, around 1984

Luise demonstrated her search results on numerous television programs and shows, including programs with Alfred Biolek , Günther Jauch , Joachim Bublath , Klausjürgen Wussow . In 1988 Luise starred in the movie ADAM with Désirée Nosbusch and Helmut Berger .

Luise and her guide completed around 70 television appearances and radio interviews, including programs and reports from the television stations:

Awards

farewell

On April 1, 1987, the police officer Werner Franke, who had trained and managed Luise, retired . He and Luise were bid farewell by the Lower Saxony Minister of the Interior Wilfried Hasselmann at a festive event . The police officer took the animal into retirement and gave it to the Sottrum Family Park , where it received its bread of grace . Before she said goodbye, Luise was fed to a boar and in 1987 threw five newborns in Sottrum. In 1998 the animal, remembered on a memorial stone in the amusement park, died.

Scientific knowledge

The collaboration between Luise and her guide yielded new scientific knowledge about the smell, perception and learning abilities of wild boars as well as their social behavior. Luise is mentioned in numerous scientific publications. The animal was represented in a museum through exhibitions in the German Customs Museum in Hamburg, the German Police Museum in Salzkotten , the German Hygiene Museum in Dresden, the Lucky Pig Museum in Stuttgart and the Westphalian Museum of Natural History in Münster. In the police-historical collection Lower Saxony in Hannover Luise is permanently dedicated to a small exhibition area.

reception

In Wim Thoelke's program “The Great Price” , Luise was staged by Loriot together with Wum and Wendelin .

Luise inspired the French director Gérard Oury in the movie comedy Who stole the rabbi's coke? from 1986 to have a wild boar named Louisette appear as the “secret weapon” of the Paris drug search.

The painter Sigmar Polke exhibited a portrait of Luise at the 1986 Venice Biennale .

In 2015 it became known that a German living in Spain intended to make the wild boar Luise the ambassador of his breed in Spain in order to promote animal welfare there. The background is hunting in the Serra de Collserola near Barcelona.

literature

Web links

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ Hannoversche Allgemeine Zeitung of June 22, 1985
  2. ↑ Werner Franke: Luise - Karriere einer Wildsau, Hildesheim, 1987, page 103
  3. ↑ Luise is supposed to help Spanish pigs in: Hildesheimer Allgemeine from December 17, 2015