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Trained Rats for Mine Detection
rikomatic writes "The dangerous profession of anti-personnel mine detection is getting a surprising new tool: giant Gambian rats (NY Times reg). Some resourceful Belgians have figured out how to train these 30-inch rodents to hunt out landmines. They are cheaper and work harder than dogs and are more reliable than metal detectors. Plus, if one of them blows up, who's going to cry?"
Well I'm gonna guess PETA might care. They aren't happy about the military using dolphins.
Here in Wisconsin last year we had an outbreak of the disease monkeypox which was traced back to some hedgehogs who had shared a cage with Gambian rats. Looks like trading one set of risks for another.
From the article:
Rats are abundant, cheap and easily transported. At three pounds, they are too light to detonate mines accidentally. They can sift the bouquet of land-mine aromas far better than any machine. Unlike even the best mine-detecting dog or human, they are relentlessly single-minded.
"Throw a stick for a dog to fetch, and after 10 times the dog will say, `Get it yourself, buddy,' " Mr. Weetjens said. "Rats will keep working as long as they want food."
Better than dogs, in this case.
Has anyone considered ducks?
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I witnessed one swimming in an open-air sewer in Brazil. It took the firefighters over an hour to get it in a cage. It weighed over 150 pounds. In case you wondering they are called capivara, though the spelling varies.
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I saw a docu on national TV on this.
They were training the rats. They had to stop at dishes with TNT traces.
The trainers gradually reduced the amount of TNT. It was reduced so far that it was undetectable, yet the rats still stopped.
The bastards no longer reacted on the TNT, but at the smell of the guy who filled the dishes every day. They had to be retrained, wasting a few months.
But, hey, you can't blame them taking the easy road.
This is not so really new.
The Russians trained dogs to feed under tanks. They starved them for days, then let them free with their food to be found under tanks.
When the Germans came, the dogs were loaded up with anti-tank devices, triggered by a lever on their backs. After a few days of no food, the Russians let them free in the German occupied terrority. Of course, the dogs ran straight to the German tanks looking for, and expecting food **BANG**
After a few weeks of this, the Germans were so shit scared of this 'terrorist' activity, they used to shoot any dog on sight, taking no chances, so slowly the Russians use for the dogs faded.
Then the Russian boffins discovered that mice used to nest in the tanks (nice and warm) and used to strip electrical cabling to make their nests - very shortly rendering the tank useless until repaired (very difficult). They bred and released thousands of mice to attack the German tanks in this way.
The Germans fed-up of of this type of terror attack, struck back by dropped cats from aircraft to combat the mice attack, and that worked very well...
then the Russians had a brain wave, and brought out the 'retired' tank dogs to get the cats.
The full circle!
Amazing, but true.
Nick
In my experience, only if the dog is abysmally lazy. Dogs don't fetch a stick to do work, they fetch because they want to play.
<anecdote> I recall when I lived with my parents, they had a sheltie that had way more endurance for "fetch" than I, or anyone else in the family for that matter, ever did. She'd go for 30 or 40 tosses easily before wanting to take a breather and you'd think she'd had enough, but then after about 3 or 4 minutes, she'd be carrying the stick up to you again and drop it at your feet to throw it again... rather comical to watch, really... she'd drop it, and look up at you expectantly, and wait for a few seconds... if you didn't pick it up, she'd pick it up herself and then drop it again right at your feet, then she'd run away, all the while looking back to see if you are throwing the stick, if you still didn't pick it up, she'd come back to you and pick the stick up and drop it again at your feet (rinse, lather, repeat). Talk about single-minded!!! </anecdote>
File under 'M' for 'Manic ranting'
In fact, Apopo uses rats, in part, because they are lightweight and very unlikely to set off landmines. (Otherwise native wildlife would routinely set off mines.) It would not be a very effective solution if they spent 1/3 of the animal's life training it and then sent it out to be killed the first time it found a mine. The rats that they train have a natural life expectancy of around 8 years - and the handlers want them to live as long as possible to maximize the time and effort. There is even an alternative method they are investigating which involves filters - the rats don't even go near the suspected areas. I can't see much that PETA could complain about here.
I was taking one day at a time, but then several days got together and ambushed me. (from a Rhymes with Orange comic)
To be sure of getting all of them you have to either detect them reliably (often no metal parts, which makes it a million times more difficult) or disturb all the soil, damaging crops, trees etc. Footpaths may be mined, they may run through trees, across hillsides, and so on, where it is impracticable to use a bulldozer.
In the case of the bigger mines, you could in theory build a very robust machine, and be willing to repair it quite often. It could run up and down all day automatically, using GPS. It would be much less stressful to its operators, I have heard that operating an armoured bulldozer leads to lots of nervous breakdowns because of the frequent random explosions. I think that might have been on TV some time after Mrs. Thatcher's Falklands war.
If people do have new ideas about this, they should perhaps communicate them to the proper authorities, it really does seem to still be a major problem.
We still occasionally find one of Hitler's bombs in the UK, I know it is a slightly different scenario, but they usually do appear to be still dangerous after 60 years. There was an evacuation somewhere a few weeks ago while the thing was made safe.
I also saw something else on TV a few years ago, again probably in Kuwait, which seemed to detonate an entire minefileld at once. IIRC it was a British invention, likely the US will have it also. Can't remember how it worked, whether it was EMP, or sonic, or what. All I remember is seeing a vast set of almost simultaneous explosions. I think it might not have been totally reliable, IIRC it missed a few.
I think that maybe you asked the question because it does not seem to be done, and I suspect that the answer mainly involves money rather than impossible technology.