T.N.T. RABBITRY HOW TO

And there's a downside-the animals only live about eight years, which means a lot of training for an animal with a relatively short time span. This whole training process takes about nine months for every rat. If they find a mine, they detonate it on site. When the trained rats find a landmine, they stop and scratch at the TNT-scented spot, which the human de-miners mark and come back later to excavate.

T.N.T. RABBITRY HOW TO

The last step is hooking the critters up to harnesses and teaching them how to walk on a rope grid in the field. For another, they don’t respond to verbal commands, so the trainers have to teach them that hearing a click means they get a food reward.

Training the rats to sniff out landmines isn’t easy, though.įor one thing, the rodents need to learn how to be around humans, starting at infancy.

( Learn about Cambodia’s recovery from landmines’ scourge.) A Different Kind of Rat Race

Since APOPO was founded in 1997, these furry super-sniffers have helped clear 13,200 mines from minefields in Tanzania, Mozambique, Angola, and, most recently, in Cambodia. One rat can search over 2000 square feet (200 square meters) in 20 minutes, an area that could take a human up to four days, APOPO training manager Abdullah Ramadhan says in an email. These critters are light enough to walk over the mines without setting them off, and use their noses to find the explosives quickly. ( Read more about dogs, rats, and bees on the hunt for landmines.)Įnter APOPO, a Belgian nonprofit that has created an army of TNT-sniffing African giant pouched rats. Trained dogs, while commonly used, are expensive and tough to transport. In 2013, mines and other buried explosives caused 3,308 casualties worldwide-down from 4,325 in 2012, according to the 2014 Landmine Monitor report.įinding these hidden explosives is challenging and dangerous: People with metal detectors not only risk their lives, they work slowly, stopping to investigate every suspicious ping. Even decades after conflict, explosive remnants of war linger in the earth, maiming and killing thousands of people who stumble across them each year. This makes them perfect candidates for discovering hidden landmines by sniffing out the explosive TNT. This wonderful breed and hobby has brought us a lifetime of memories, and friendships to treasure.African giant pouched rats-huge, cat-size rodents native to central Africa-have bad vision but an extraordinary sense of smell. We had raised and shown other breeds for years but the experience raising and showing nationally competitive Belgian Hares is awesome. I am always thrilled to share what I've learned in raising the Hares. Although our children are grown and gone, our granddaughter shares the Hare passion. We are active members of the ARBA, ABHC, WSRBA, and STARBA. I also serve as leader and barn superintendent to our local 4-H clubs and county fair. Travis Finkle formed a line out of Rare Hare, Sage Hallow and Barabe lines, which I have incorporated into my Tans. We also added Sage Hallow lines in both Rufus and Tan and Imagination Acres in Rufus. With the generosity of other Hare breeders I was able to get some of my old lines back. In July 2009 we lost all our Hares but one Tan doe and one Rufus doe in a barn fire. Great lines including the late Ron Woods from UK and Holland imports. In that shipment was a pair for me, a birthday gift from Gary and Joe. They were out of the first breeding of Joe Chess's imports. In the spring 2008, I received a shipment of five Jr Tan Hares to be delivered to a few breeders at a show. My lines at that time were a make up of Butler's, Johnson's and Zaloudke H&H Marshall fit right in. In a month we added Queen and Princess. At that time they were said to be endangered, and I couldn't let that happen! So it began, registered with the American Rabbit Breeders Association, Rare Hare Rabbitry.Īt the 2004 ARBA Convention I was pleased to add a buck to our herd from Harris and Hoyle from the UK. I had such a deep passion for the Belgian Hare growing up, I couldn't believe it when I saw a young Jr buck at a show FOR SALE.

T.n.t. rabbitry