This is coolbert:
Little snippet in the most current issue of the National Geographic about demining operations and the African pouched rat!
"Ratted OUT"
"Bart Weetjens smiles. A Belgian product designer, Weetjens devised a way for those often reviled rodents to help solve a global problem: how to locate land mines, some 60 million of which are scattered in 69 countries. Dogs are often deployed to sniff them out, 'But I knew rats were easier to train,' says Weetjens . . . Rats are also light, so they don't detonate the mines they find, they stay healthy in tropical areas . . . and they're cheap to breed and raise. In the late 1990's Weetjens chose the African giant pouched rate . . . for Pavlovian training . . . More than 30 trained sniffers, a/k/a HeroRATS, have started sweeping minefields in Mozambique"
[a picture accompanying the snippet shows a leashed rat tethered to a rope stretched between two points sniffing out a mine! A posed picture, obviously, but still indicative of how the little "guys" work in the field! These rats also have been trained to "sniff" out tuberculosis. Used in lieu of "lab technicians" and again, doing yeoman work!!]
Trained rat used to detect mines. Being used - - right now - - in Mozambique! This is the "acid test" for the first batch of little brown furry creatures! Trained to sniff for and detect mines. I recall from somewhere that rats can actually be trained to do some amazing stuff. An animal with a brain about the size of pea is more intelligent than what we generally believe?
These are the African pouched rats, also called the Giant Gambian rat?
When a mine is detected - - the little rat - - gets a treat. That is one of the beauties of this whole concept. The rats too - - work for peanuts, literally so!
Seriously though, this idea has merit! Mozambique is one of the four most mine infested nations on earth [Angola, Mozambique, Afghanistan, Cambodia]! Whatever way works is fine with me. Just remove those mines and reclaim valuable land that can be put to good use. Currently 95 % of the arable land in Mozambique lies fallow, for a variety of reasons. Mines and the danger from same is one reason why this is so!
"It doesn't matter whether the cat [rat] is white or black , only that it catches [finds] mice [mines]!!"
Absolutely!
[you can even go to the HeroRat web site and adopt and sponsor one of the critters.]
coolbert.
Little snippet in the most current issue of the National Geographic about demining operations and the African pouched rat!
"Ratted OUT"
"Bart Weetjens smiles. A Belgian product designer, Weetjens devised a way for those often reviled rodents to help solve a global problem: how to locate land mines, some 60 million of which are scattered in 69 countries. Dogs are often deployed to sniff them out, 'But I knew rats were easier to train,' says Weetjens . . . Rats are also light, so they don't detonate the mines they find, they stay healthy in tropical areas . . . and they're cheap to breed and raise. In the late 1990's Weetjens chose the African giant pouched rate . . . for Pavlovian training . . . More than 30 trained sniffers, a/k/a HeroRATS, have started sweeping minefields in Mozambique"
[a picture accompanying the snippet shows a leashed rat tethered to a rope stretched between two points sniffing out a mine! A posed picture, obviously, but still indicative of how the little "guys" work in the field! These rats also have been trained to "sniff" out tuberculosis. Used in lieu of "lab technicians" and again, doing yeoman work!!]
Trained rat used to detect mines. Being used - - right now - - in Mozambique! This is the "acid test" for the first batch of little brown furry creatures! Trained to sniff for and detect mines. I recall from somewhere that rats can actually be trained to do some amazing stuff. An animal with a brain about the size of pea is more intelligent than what we generally believe?
These are the African pouched rats, also called the Giant Gambian rat?
When a mine is detected - - the little rat - - gets a treat. That is one of the beauties of this whole concept. The rats too - - work for peanuts, literally so!
Seriously though, this idea has merit! Mozambique is one of the four most mine infested nations on earth [Angola, Mozambique, Afghanistan, Cambodia]! Whatever way works is fine with me. Just remove those mines and reclaim valuable land that can be put to good use. Currently 95 % of the arable land in Mozambique lies fallow, for a variety of reasons. Mines and the danger from same is one reason why this is so!
"It doesn't matter whether the cat [rat] is white or black , only that it catches [finds] mice [mines]!!"
Absolutely!
[you can even go to the HeroRat web site and adopt and sponsor one of the critters.]
coolbert.
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