An African giant rat is receiving landmine detection training in Tanzania-based APOPO. (Xinhua/Li Sibo)
DAR ES SALAAM, April 3 (Xinhua) -- Kudra, an African giant rat, routinely starts its sniffing search just after dawn in an open grassland in Tanzania's Morogoro region.
It is not searching for food, but one lethal threat to human -- landmines.
Kudra is in a landmine detection training. With the goal of becoming a hero rat, Kudra crawls and sniffs in full attention in a box area of 200 square meters to detect TNT-filled defused landmines, with the help of two trainers from Tanzania-based non-profit organization APOPO, which is dedicated to training African giant pouched rats to detect landmines.
An African giant rat is receiving landmine detection training in Tanzania-based APOPO. (Xinhua/Li Sibo)
Founded in 1997, APOPO has researched and pioneered the use of African giant pouched rats, a large rodent that can be found in most of sub-Saharan African nations, in landmine detection to free people from the terrors of the explosive remnants of war.
These rats, though seen as a noxious animals by many people, have impressively acute sense of smell that allows them to quickly sniff out TNT in underground explosives. While the conventional way of detecting landmines, by using metal detectors, is comparatively slow as the detector is unable to distinguish real landmines from scrap metal.
Besides, the rats are too light to set off the landmines when treading on them, and much cheaper to feed and train than dogs, making them the perfect "tool" in detecting mines.
One trained rat can search an area the size of a tennis court (about 650 square meters) in 30 minutes, which may take a manual deminer up to four days, said Christophe Cox, CEO of APOPO.
Training of the baby rats starts at their 7th week and lasts for about 9 months. In the process, they will learn to discriminate between TNT odor and other smells. When a rat correctly locates a landmine, the trainer will use a device to make a clicking sound which is usually followed by food treat, a mix of bananas and avocado.
But not all rats can succeed to be heroes. In the final test, the rats have to search a box area of 800 square meters, and each 100-square-meter field randomly contains 1 to 4 landmines, said Shafii Ally, a trainer from APOPO. To pass the test, each rat needs to find all the mines, and have a maximum of two chances for "false alarm."
After passing the test, the hero rats are sent to other countries, including Mozambique, Angola and Cambodia to help the locals clear mines.
According to the latest APOPO statistics, a total of 37 trained rats were deployed in mine detection in 2016. With their help, over 960,000 square meters of land were given back to local communities, on which over 34,600 landmines and unexploded ordnance were located and destroyed.
Besides landmine detection, APOPO rats are also trained to detect tuberculosis in Tanzania and Ethiopia by sniffing out sputum samples. The organization is also exploring other uses of these rats and their keen senses of smell, said Cox.
Thousands of people are killed by landmines each year, and the majority casualties are civilians. Aimed at raising awareness about landmines and progress toward their eradication, the United Nations' International Day for Mine Awareness and Assistance in Mine Action is observed on April 4 each year.
This year's theme for the commemoration of the day is "Advancing Protection, Peace and Development."
