Mines ? Rats !

Hello Everybody

An item that has been doing the rounds in the media over here:

As you all well know, mines are difficult to find and hazardous to
remove. A lot of methods are being tried to clean up areas infested
with them. This includes dogs trained to sniff out the explosives in
them and alert mine-clearing engineers to their presence.

However, dogs have some severe limitations for this role, especially
for 3rd world countries. They are rather difficult to train to that
role, and expensive to feed and maintain. They do not work well in hot
climates. They are rather easily distracted, so that they have to be
led at least twice onver an area. Dogs also are not good at working
with different people, they prefer a single handler.

A German institute has now found a viable alternative. Rats can smell
out mines just as well as dogs, are easy to train, cheaper to maintain
and much less picky about their surroundings. A species of large
African rats has proven especially useful for the task.

So perhaps GZG might soon produce a PAU engineer leading a pack of
mine-sniffing rats ?

Greetings