Cambodia is way ahead of us...Light years ahead!
In many formerly warring regions, landmines remain scattered underneath the countryside. And finding them is no easy task. The most common solutions, like bomb-sniffing dogs and metal detectors, are costly and time-consuming. Now, a nonprofit organization called APOPO thinks that there’s a better solution: Bomb-sniffing rats.
Related Content
"The idea was very strange," APOPO Cambodia’s operations coordinator Theap Bunthourn tells Michael Sullivan for NPR. "Cambodian people kill rats. [They] don't like rats. But they're cost-efficient, they're easy to transport, they're easy to train, and they don't set off the mines because they're too light."
These aren’t your typical subway rat: The African giant pouched rat is about the size of a cat, writes Rachel A. Becker for National Geographic. While their eyesight isn’t great, they have an impeccable sense of smell and are able to identify and detect the smell of TNT from amounts as small as 29 grams, Sullivan reports.
The rats are also cheaper and easier to train and handle than dogs, which are commonly used to clear Cambodian minefields. While dogs can only work with the handler they bond with, the rats will happily hunt mines for anyone holding their leash, as long as they get a tasty reward whenever they find a mine.
When fully trained, a rat can search over 2,000 square feet in 20 minutes. It could take a human with a metal detector as much as four days to scour the same area, APOPO training manager Abdullah Ramadhan tells Becker. While training still costs about $6,500 per rat, the little explosives experts have helped find about 13,200 mines in Tanzania, Mozambique, Angola and Cambodia over the last 20 years.
Read more: http://www.smithsonianmag.com/smart-news/watch-these-giant-rats-sniff-out-landmines-180956899/#AQxYHIT1svZ54wj2.99
Give the gift of Smithsonian magazine for only $12! http://bit.ly/1cGUiGv
Follow us: @SmithsonianMag on Twitter
= new reply since forum marked as read
kind of cute
