Most people think of rats as dirty vermin that carry diseases, and while in some cases that might be true, in Africa’s case the wild rodents are mini-sized saviors.
Surprisingly rats don’t only have a nose for garbage; their sense of smell serves a higher purpose in previously war-torn countries. These little critters sniff out landmines. Dogs sniffing out bombs in public spaces such as airports are a common sight but who would have thought that rats could take up this important and highly dangerous task?
An organization called APOPO says that rats can sometimes do the job even better than a well-trained hound. The group’s president, Mic Billet, said, “We have 50 rats working in minefields in Mozambique at the moment”
The rats are working towards making these high-danger areas safe, which saves lives. The organization is funded primarily by the Belgium government and there is a training facility in Tanzania where the rodents are taught the ropes of sniffing out minefields.
The rats used are of the African Giant Pouched variety and can grow to about 2.5 feet in length (including the tail), weigh over three pounds and can live up to eight years. It is because of their heightened sense of smell that these rats are able to detect the mines, and their small size gives them a big advantage; there is less chance of a light rodent setting the mine off than a much larger dog or human. The rats are also easier to feed and transport.
Billet says they’re easy to work with; it takes between six months and a year to train a rat’s sense of smell. The animals are very friendly, without being needy. Billet says, “when you work with a dog, you have to say ‘Good boy!’. A rat doesn’t need that. The rat tells you, I try to find the contamination, and if I do, you will feed me.”
The group’s rats find many mines, averaging between two and five landmines a day in Mozambique. The most important aspect of the project is the fact that the local people are given back their land. By clearing danger areas of live-threatening mines, APOPO, with their miracle rats, have given back 1,300,012 acres back. This helped nearly 45,000 people in 2009 alone.
The rats have been dubbed Hero Rats, but the idea to use them for this work was initially laughed off. In 1995 Billet and a colleague devised the idea as a way to help landmine victims. The two enthusiasts spent months doing research and ended up with the idea to use rats. Billet was a professor at the University of Antwerp and asked the university’s biologists if there was a chance their plan could work. At first they thought he was going senile, however, they were soon convinced and subsequently spent two years researching the logistics of the plan. The rats showed that they were more than up to the job.
APOPO began training the rats for bomb-sniffing but they now use the creatures for other purposes as well. The group has successfully trained some rats to detect tuberculosis taking them into African hospitals to test samples. “Last year, the rats detected 905 positive TB samples, all classified as negative by labs,” Billet said. Using rats to detect the illness is fast, cheap and more accurate.
And while Billet says that it’s absolutely possible for rats to work in airports the group is currently not focusing on that area. People will have to admit that the creature that most women abhor is saving lives, which is more than can be said for most people.
Jade Scully is a copywriter excited about writing copy and stories, blogging about the world and editing. She currently and regularly publishes her stories on a number of blogs. Jade loves animals and hopes to begin writing copy for the animal rescue charity TEARS as her contribution to the cause.
