Bomb-sniffing pig roots out danger (land mines in Angola and Mozambique)

[papau]

http://www.thestar.com/NASApp/cs/ContentServer?pagename=thestar/Layout/Article_Type1&c=Article&cid=1067209807918&call_pageid=968332188854&col=968350060724

Oct. 27, 2003. 01:00 AM


Bomb-sniffing pig roots out danger
CRAIG NELSON SPECIAL TO THE STARKIBBUTZ LAHAV, Israel—

Israel boasts of giving the world many great inventions, including drip irrigation, the Uzi submachine gun and the "electrical hand-held leg-hair removing device," otherwise known as the Epilady.

Now come bomb-sniffing pigs.

If Geva Zin, 26, has his way, a creature that is largely taboo in Israel will be its next gift to the world.At this collective farm in southern Israel, Zin is training pigs to sniff out land mines and the other discarded garbage of modern warfare that maim and kill long after the guns have fallen silent.

"The pigs are for Angola and Mozambique. We're going to use them for humanitarian missions ... We're training them, not for food, but to save lives."

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