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The Use of Dogs in the Blood Mining Industry |
Apart from Africa, however, diamonds are also produced in Israel, India, Thailand, China, Bulgaria, Canada, Russia, Australia and America. Unfortunately, not all diamonds pass through the right hands because some referred to as “blood diamonds” are illegally mined and traded and are used to finance conflicts around Africa.
In particular, the money earned from the illicit trade of diamonds is used to purchase weapons on the black market. The weapons are then provided to the rebel groups most of which have children as members.
To address this issue, the United Nations and other diamond producing countries have passed a resolution requiring nations to provide accurate reports on the real source of the diamonds they export and trade.
This illicit mining of diamonds has been going on for many years now. In fact, apart from the people involved in this act, dogs have also been utilized to guard their mining activities. If soldiers use the canine, the rebels involved in the blood diamond trade follow the same strategy.
Dogs have a strong sense of smell 100,000 times better than humans and as such, they can readily determine danger or the presence of diamonds in a specific area. In dogs, a huge part of their brain focuses on vision while 40 percent is committed to the sense of smell.
Popular breeds that make great guard dogs include the German Shepherd, Rottweiler, Amstaf and Doberman Pinscher. These large sized dog breeds have been used by police particularly when searching for bombs and drugs. They are the most preferred dogs due to their great sense of smell owing to the presence of 125 to 250 million smell receptors compared to the other dog breeds.
People involved in the blood diamond trade recognize the importance of dogs not only in guarding them but also in searching for the right place to do their mining activity. It is because dogs have the ability to smell things even 40 feet deep down the earth's surface.
The blood diamonds are normally the rough and uncut stones which are also worth millions of dollars. Sadly, many of them fall in the wrong hands who are only out to sow fear and conflict in Africa. It's a reality as well that other countries are taking advantage of these raw stones and contribute to the conflict by providing arms and ammunition to the groups in exchange for the diamonds.
As this situation in the blood diamond sector remains, one thing's for sure – the dogs will always have an important role to play. Hopefully in the future, they will no longer be used in illicit means but in the legal trade of the precious stone.
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