Yes, you read the title of this post correctly...today, we're going to talk about mine sniffing rats...why, you might ask...? Because I stumbled across the subject...thought it was interesting...and decided to share that information with you fine folks here on Steemit...not that there are many of you who follow my posts...but for the handful or so that drop by on a daily basis, I am appreciative...
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Far be it from me to say anything to the two goombahs in back who are monitoring this little guy in the pic...but if he happens to have a bad day...and trips a mine instead of sniffing it out...they're well within the blast range...land mines are no joke...they weren't just built to destroy people who stumbled upon them...they were meant to disable tanks and personnel carriers as well...trust me, you don't wanna have the front row seats these guys have if a landmine ever goes off...
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If you thought the guys in the last picture were in harm's way...these mine sniffing rat handlers are putting way too much faith in our four-legged furry little friends and their abilities to sniff out mines...they're not just IN the blast zone...they're completely unprotected...I don't mean to be crass...but if Stuart Little there lets out a sneeze...you might not find body parts from these guys for weeks...
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One of the places these mine sniffing rats are seeing a lot of work is over in Cambodia...where an estimated 4 to 6 million land mines still dot the countryside...left behind from decades of conflict...and the same can be said about Laos and Vietnam...and that's where the rats come in...but not just any rat...these are Gambian pouched rats...they average 2 feet in length and have extremely bad eyesight...but what they lack in eyesight, they more than make up for with their sense of smell...
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These giant mine sniffing rats are also being used in parts of Africa...the average mine sniffing rat can clear 200 square meters of land in 20 minutes...a significant improvement over the 25 hours it would take humans using metal detectors...the rats smell nothing but the TNT used to make the mine...whereas metal detectors pick up on every fragment of metal they wave across...this means that the future of mine sweeping is going to be Gambian pouched rats...and that's something you know now...
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I became intrigued by this post, thank you.
Glad you liked it...thanks for stopping by ;)