Another animal in the war against land mines
and this time its a rat.
It seems that great African pouched rats are being trained to detect the smell of the explosives in landmines and as they are not heavy enough to set them off, they can safely show where they are.
Whether this is true or not, or even if it comes to nothing, its still a great idea.
In the land of the blind, the one-arm man is king.
Ah, the giant pouched rat. You'll note that the article has pictures of them training baby rats. Those seem kind of big for babies, don't they?
Yes. Yes they do.
The adults will be about 28 inches long! They're not generally aggressive and prefer to run away from people than attack. They've never been properly domesticated, but if hand reared from a young age they'll make friendly pets. Assuming you don't have any smaller rats they might decide to kill, anyway.
They're pretty intelligent, so it seems like a good choice of animal to sniff out mines. Since they aren't a domesticated species I'm dubious about how well the training will stick, though.
So now they are just dirt-covered English people in fur pelts with credit cards.
I recall reading that they were going to use Starbuck's employees. Is that off the table now?
"I won't kill for money, and I won't marry for it. Other than that, I'm open to just about anything."
-Jim Rockford
I don't care what they use, as long as they can start clearing those old minefields. Rats, dogs, goats, octopi, cyborg ferrets, I'll support anything that removes those death traps.
OTOH, I was still bemused a couple of years ago when it was reported that the old mine fields on the Falkland Islands are actually acting to help protect the penguins and other endangered birds there, by protecting them from dogs and other predators.
Aw. Who's a giant, nightmarish African rat? Is it you? Yes it is!
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