|
Humans have so far been responsible for finding animals that
need to be moved to a safer place while construction goes ahead,
but the dogs are set to take over the job in 2022 following
training that should finish by the end of this year, DB said.
"The use of dogs for construction projects is new in Germany.
Thanks to their fine sense of smell, dogs can find protected
species at any time of year and in almost any weather," said
Jens Bergmann, DB's director of infrastructure planning.
"This will help us start building more quickly."
The railway company's trainers are working with six dogs of
different breeds, which are taught to sniff out protected
animals such as creeping snakes, yellow-bellied toads, bats,
wall lizards and sand lizards on railway tracks, DB said.
The dogs learn to recognise the animals' smell by sniffing
eggshells and sheddings outdoors as well as in different weather
conditions in a climatic chamber, DB said.
As the dogs explore the construction sites, their handlers will
record their findings on a tablet using a new digital data
platform aimed at giving all project participants and regulatory
authorities access to real-time data about the detected species.
Scientists from the University of Innsbruck, the Bonn-Rhein-Sieg
University of Applied Sciences and the Helmholtz Centre for
Environmental Research are also accompanying the dogs and their
trainers.
(Reporting by Andreas Buerger, Frank Simon; Writing by Zuzanna
Szymanska, Editing by William Maclean)
[© 2021 Thomson Reuters. All rights
reserved.] Copyright 2021 Reuters. All rights reserved. This material may not be published,
broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.
Thompson Reuters is solely responsible for this content.
|
|
