Elspode suggests this item, the full caption:
A mine detecting Gambian giant pouch rat works an area in a mine field near Vilancoulos in southern Mozambique, 450 km north east of the capital Maputo, in this November 2004 file photo. The rats are trained from an early age to associate the scent of explosives with a food reward and indicate the suspected presence of explosives by grooming and scratching the earth. Clearing the many minefields, which are a result of the country's twenty year civil war, is funded by international and Mozambican Non Government Organisations and the government.
What is left unsaid is how often the scratching rat sets off the mine. Sad. Clearly they have developed this system to let the distant (and protective-suited) humans to stand a few yards away while the rat does his business.
10-18-2005, 04:38 PM
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