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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, they can't be trained too well or they'd have enough sense to stay away from those land mines.
Rats don't have a union and get paid 1/10th the food dogs do...
"Waste not one watt!" - CZ
Well I'm gonna guess PETA might care. They aren't happy about the military using dolphins.
reg free version
Marge, get me your address book, 4 beers, and my conversation hat.
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I'm sick of this anti-rodent bias in humans! "Plus, if one of them blows up, who's going to cry?" says the poster, and not a one of you will disagree with him, will you?
Fuckin' speciests, the lot of you!
On a more serious note, people will be upset about this, if only because it costs time and money to train any animal, even rats.
The previous sig has been removed due to
Why not use lawyers instead. They aren't as cute and no-one gets attached to them.
> Plus, if one of them blows up, who's going to cry?
My father was a giant Gambian rat, you insensitive clod!
John.
"Rodents of unusual size? They don't exist!" *rat attacks*
===== Murphy's Law is recursive. =====
Not as cool as my trained sharks with frickin laser beams....
I mod down so you can mod up. Your welcome.
"Rats don't have a union and get paid 1/10th the food dogs do..."
That's OK, just wait 'til those damn rats get outsourced to IT workers, who don't have a union and get paid 1/10th of the rats.
Plus, if one of them blows up, who's going to cry?
The rats' pan-dimensional, super-intelligent kindred will care, and I would not want to tangle with them.
And how long 'til we hear "Hey! Whose rat is this?"
"MINE!"
"Rodents Of Unusual Size? Frankly, I don't think they... " *boom*
from Dr. Fegg's Encyclopedia of All World Knowledge
::Note::
Dr. Fegg has only ever written one national anthem. Here it is, reproduced for the first time. Dr. Fegg would like to remind all his readers that he has not yet been paid for it.
-The Gambian National Anthem-
Gambia, Oh Gambia,
Though only small and thin,
When it comes to being called Gambia,
You are the one to win.
Your capital is Bathurst
A name that means so much
To you who live in Gambia,
Though less so to the Dutch.
Gambia, where men are men
And trees fit in the ground.
The one six-lettered nation
Where Gambians abound!
Gambians! O Gambians!
Though your country is so thin
And most of it a river
It's the place that you live in.
From mountains down to flat bits,
Ring out your anthem great,
Though now you're part of Senegal
The words are out of date.
-Bertram Wesley Fegg DD
WARNING: Humming of this anthem, even to oneself, renders the reader liable for royalty payments. These should be sent to Dr. Fegg personally and *not*, repeat *not* to the chisellers at the Gambian embassy.
Many people ask: What is Dr. Fegg a doctor *of*? Well, without going into specifics Dr. Fegg has tried his hand at many things in his time.
His is the sort of mind that can encompass deck chair repairing, sweeping, billposting and the buying and selling of cars with one previous owner. So it is perhaps unfair and irrelevant to confine his extraordinary talents to the mundane world of labels and categories.
Dr. Fegg *has* delivered babies, but only during the busy pre-Christmas period when the Post Office can't cope. And Dr. Fegg has done brain surgery-- though *never*, repeat *never* in the Bournemouth area.
Now if only we could just train humans not to plant the mines, *then* we'd be getting somewhere.
I went to the city because I wished to live without deliberation.
...so, Darl has finally been trained to do something useful?
You'll see that since they only weigh three pounds they don't trigger the mines.
If you can read this sig - the bitch fell off.
In most of the slashdot penetrating world, we think of dogs primarily as companion animals, and find the thougt of them being blown to bits in mine clearance as "sad" (at least I certainly would)
I suspect from the point of view of the mine-clearing-canine group from Canada (they were recently spotlighted in a television program on National Geographic here) - it is the cost of training the animal that is the more serious loss, than the emotional suffering the handlers may suffer from the loss of a companion. For one project they had on the order of a half-dozen animals. So, losing one in an accident would be a pretty serious reduction in force.
Hopefully with rats, the cost of training, supporting, and getting them into the mine fields would be low enough that the mission would be less adversely impacted by losing one animal.
I am certain my friend who keeps pet rats would be just as horrified imagining a rat being killed ina clearing accident as I would be imagining a dog suffering the same fate.
How does the Slashdot Effect happen given that no slashdotters ever RTFA?
They should use womp rats.
They're not much bigger than two meters.
So what if a bunch of kids on Tatooine don't have live targets anymore? They should be using their T16s for more constructive things, anyway.
You are in error. No-one is screaming. Thank you for your cooperation.
Or...
Brain: Pinky, are you pondering what I'm pondering? Pinky: I think so Brain, but I'd rather go hump a landmine.. Narf! {BOOM!!!}
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Actually, when they start they aren't heavy enough. But each time they find a mine, they get food. So after a certain number of mines, the rats will be heavy enough and then: Rat-burgers!
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.
"Plus, if one of them blows up, who's going to cry?"
I was raised by giant Gambian rats, you insensitive... oh nevermind. I'm calling Peta, the People for the Eating of Tasty Animals.
666-607: 6th floor apartment of the beast
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)