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Overview
As an outdoor researcher, your greatest chance of coming across a booby
trap lies within the odds of your stumbling into a marijuana plantation or
some other area that a
hostile individual or group wishes to keep exclusive.
Though it is unlikely you will ever encounter a booby trap, they are becoming more
common -- especially in the southwestern US. Sadly, national and state parks are
NOT immune to this growing problem. With the above in mind, it is
perhaps wise to at least have some idea of what booby traps are, where
they are found, how they work and how to deal with them.
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Booby traps wait silently, ever alert for anyone
to pass. When triggered, they maim and kill with cold indifference. |
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Anything can be made into a booby trap and most
traps are easily camouflaged. Therefore, no discussion of
these devices is ever complete. The aim of this page is simply to
expand your awareness. Not all booby traps are illegal.
M-44 Cyanide Dispensers are used lawfully by private citizens
(usually ranchers) as well as government agencies to control animal
populations. Granted, M-44's are targeted at animals, but they are
booby traps nonetheless, and they can kill you just as well. |
Where Found
Drug farmers are known for placing booby traps of various types on the
perimeters of and within their plantations. They sometimes even
booby trap the plants themselves to make uprooting by drug enforcement
agents difficult or even deadly. If you are working outdoors and you
suddenly notice you're surrounded by marijuana plants, opium poppies, etc.
it is important to recognize that you and your crew may be in jeopardy.
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Opium poppies and their bulbs which have been sliced to
extract opium. (Click to enlarge.) |
Marijuana plants. (Click to enlarge.) |
| Owners of
private property have likewise been known to
set booby traps on their land when they grow tired or chronic trespassing
for example. This is yet another reason for securing proper
permission to work a given parcel of land.
Extremists and
anti-government groups also have a history of booby trapping their secret
meeting grounds, hideouts, land holdings, etc. Unfortunately,
gathering information about the activities of these groups is difficult at
best. Your best defense is to know your field area. |
Examples of Non-lethal Booby Traps
At first glance, this type of trap might seem ridiculous, but it could
be a strong clue that illegal activity may be taking place in the
immediate area. (Of course, it could also mean that a group of 12-year old boys has built themselves a fort to play in.)
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If you think something is wrong, it
probably is. Stop and carefully assess the situation.
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Examples of Lethal Booby Traps
Fortunately, booby traps of this sort are rare because they are only
used by the most dangerous of criminal elements. Unfortunately,
since their intent is to kill, they will be well hidden and very difficult
to spot.
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If you think you're looking at a booby trap, you
probably are. The best course of action is to notify the
authorities. |
- Shotgun Shell on a Rat Trap:
- A shotgun shell is attached to a standard rat trap and painted so
as to camouflage the apparatus. It is then positioned on a tree
or rock with the shotgun shell pointing to strike the victim's region and rigged to a trip wire. Note that the trip wire for this
device has to be aligned with the shotgun shell's blast cone.
Even if you do not see the wire, you can avoid it if you are lucky
enough to have noticed the trap before triggering it.
- Explosives:
- Gunpowder is available at any firearms dealer in sufficient
quantity to improvise an antipersonnel explosive. Further,
powerful explosives can be mixed easily from basic household
chemicals. Booby traps of this sort may be laced with nails,
glass and even chemical and biological agents. The trip wire for
this device can be almost anywhere. A short length of household
pipe six inches to one foot long is commonly used as a housing.
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What to do
Having good
Situational
Awareness and
Crew
Leadership skills will give you a big head start on addressing
this issue and its potentials. If you do find yourself in a booby
trap situation, effective
Problem Management will be invaluable.
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The best defense is twofold:
1) having awareness that booby traps ARE out
there.
2) having the skills to recognize them and react properly. |
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Immediately stop all
movement and alert the entire crew -- even those not in the
immediate area. If you have hand-held radios, this essential task
should be easy and safe since it is unlikely that the transmitted radio
energy will trigger a device of this nature.
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If you can do so without
compromising safety, mark your exact position with GPS or by
triangulation.
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Carefully vacate the area
in the safest possible way (usually exactly as you entered it)
and return to your camp/vehicles. The idea is to make a
managed egress. If you feel it is unsafe to
move, you still have options, but you will have to have
prepared in advance. If you are in a region with cell
phone coverage, call 911 or the local emergency number to request a
rescue. If that is not feasible, simply sit down and wait until
you are found. Be aware that search parties will find you much
sooner if you have
left word with others as to your whereabouts and expected return
time. Also know that members of the search party will eventually be
walking the same booby trapped area you are in and may not know the
dangers.
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Once you are safe, alert
the proper authorities (sheriff, ranger, etc.) as soon as possible and
do NOT return to the site until it has been properly investigated and
cleared.
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What NOT to do
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Do NOT try to examine,
deactivate, or otherwise defuse the trap.
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| Do NOT blow your whistle as
this will likely bring your crewmates running and may put them (and
you) at
terrible risk. |
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Do NOT simply step past a
booby trap and continue about your work. Even if the trap looks
insignificant, there are likely to be other booby traps and/or
hostile
people in the area and your
partner/crewmates will NEED their
Situation Awareness updated at once.
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Do NOT call your friends
over to look at it. The fewer people around, the better.
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Do NOT leave in haste or in
a panic. You may not have happened across the very first trap at
the perimeter so there could be other traps behind you that you might
have to pass through again.
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Please Note:
For this page, I was torn between wanting to educate field researchers
on the subject of booby traps and yet, not give anyone ideas for how to
construct or use such a device. The intent of this page is to provide
enough information so one may recognize these devices in the field and
have at least some inkling of how to handle the situation. |
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