Can rats find landmines?
The rats are trained to detect a chemical compound within the explosives, meaning they ignore scrap metal and can search for mines more quickly. Once they find an explosive, they scratch the top to alert their human co-workers.
What are the benefits of training rats to find landmines?
The training is aimed at producing rats that reliably emit an indicator response, which is pausing and pawing or biting at the ground, when they smell landmines or other explosive devices.
Can rats sniff out land mines?
Though they have terrible eyesight, the rats are ideal for such work, with their extraordinary sense of smell and their size – they are too light to trigger the mines. When they detect a mine, they lightly scratch atop it, signaling to their handler what they’ve found. Their reward: a banana.
How many landmines have rats detected?
71 landmines
Magawa the rat, who was awarded a gold medal for his heroism, is retiring from his job detecting landmines. In a five-year career, the rodent sniffed out 71 landmines and dozens more unexploded items in Cambodia.
Why are rat mine sniffers needed in Cambodia?
Cambodia has deployed its next generation of rat recruits to sniff out landmines as part of efforts to boost de-mining operations in a country plagued for decades by unexploded ordnance (UXO). Twenty African giant pouched rats were recently imported from Tanzania and have undergone intense training.
Why are rat mine sniffers needed?
The solution. APOPO’s scent detection animals, nicknamed ‘HeroRATs’ and ‘HeroDOGs’, help to rid the world of landmines and tuberculosis – returning safe land back to communities for development, and freeing people from serious illness so they can get back on their feet.
Why are rat sniffers needed in Cambodia?
How are landmines detected?
A great variety of methods for detecting landmines have been studied. These include electromagnetic methods, one of which (ground penetrating radar) has been employed in tandem with metal detectors. Explosives in landmines can also be detected directly using nuclear quadrupole resonance and neutron probes.
Why are there so many landmines in Cambodia?
Most of the land mines in Cambodia were planted between 1985 and 1989, when the Vietnamese-allied government installed a “bamboo curtain” against the invading Thai and Khmer Rouge along the Thai-Cambodia border in the northwest.
How long do Gambian pouched rats live?
The lifespan of the African Giant Pouched rat (Cricetomys gambianus) can be more than seven years in captivity. That is quite a difference from the two to three year lifespan of our domesticated pet rats and, in itself, demands a much closer look at the responsibility aspects of keeping one as a pet.
Why is Cambodia full of landmines?
Landmines were laid in Cambodia by the Vietnamese, the Cambodian government and the brutal Khmer Rouge in the 1980s and ’90s and continue to have a devastating impact on the people of Cambodia.
Is it possible to potty train a rat?
Despite popular opinion, rats are extremely clean creatures that greatly value their personal hygiene; because of this, potty training can be achieved in just a few simple steps.
What kind of rat can sniff out landmines?
While many rodents can be trained to detect scents and will work at repetitive tasks for food rewards, APOPO decided that giant African pouched rats were best suited to landmine clearance because of their African origins and lifespan of up to eight years.
How are rats helping people with land mines?
Cox said the rats have freed more than 1 million people from the terror of living with land mines. On weekends, the rats get special feast meals. And once their skills wane, they go to a rat retirement home where they get food and play for the rest of their days.
How are APOPO rats used to detect landmines?
Landmines not only cause tragic accidents, they are a barrier to development, constraining communities and denying access to fertile land, travel routes and basic needs. APOPO’s HeroRATs and HeroDOGs perform complimentary roles making them the perfect ‘tool’ for speeding up detection and clearance.