Cambodia, the country with the
highest ratio of mine amputees per capita in the world, has started
using ‘hero rats’ to sniff out unexploded landmines.
The intelligent animals, which possess some of the
most sensitive noses in the animal kingdom, have already proven to be a
faster and safer means of locating the hidden weapons.
Their participation is largely risk free as their
average weight of around one kilo is too light to detonate the mines
that rely on pressure activation.
The method is more efficient than metal detectors, with the rats trained to only sniff out TNT rather than any metal object.
As Theap Bunthourn, operations coordinator for the
project says, "If you take 200 square meters of land, the rats can
clear it in 20 to 25 minutes whereas if we used the manual method it
would take two or three days to clear the same area."
Cambodia is still reportedly one of the most
heavily land mined countries in the world after decades of civil war.
Six million mines are believed to still be in the ground, with over
67,000 people being killed or injured since 1979.
The animals are put to work six days a week in
three hour shifts, darting between two handlers standing five metres
apart while attached to a harness.
In their downtime, the rats are kept in individual cages and receive regular exercise.
The rats were recruited from Africa by the
Cambodian Mines Action Group (CMAG) alongside the Anti-Personnel Land
Mines Detection Product (APOPO).
In Mozambique they proved very effective, locating more than 13,000 landmines while no accidents were recorded.
A fact that should bode well for their work in
Cambodia, as Mark Shukuru, who helped transport the Tanzanian-born rats
to Asia, says:
"For the time being in Africa still we're going on
with our operation in Angola and there is no miss - no accidents up
until now, so we think that the experience that we got in Africa can be
shifted from Africa to Asia - here in Cambodia now, where we are also
doing operations."
Critics claim that the rodents are not as safe as
manual methods, with the animals unable to search in dense vegetation
and only capable of short shifts in the heat.
The Independent
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