From NPR, National Public Radio:
A heroic rat named Magawa has been working for five years in Cambodia, sniffing out dozens of land mines. He is believed to have saved lives.
Now, the animal is about to embark on a well-deserved retirement.
"Although still in good health, he has reached a retirement age and is clearly starting to slow down," the nonprofit APOPO[*] said Thursday. "It is time."
Magawa is a Tanzanian-born African giant pouched rat who was trained by APOPO to sniff out explosives. With careful training, he and his rat colleagues learn to identify land mines and alert their human handlers, so the mines can be safely removed.
Even among his skilled cohorts working in Cambodia, Magawa is a standout sniffer: In four years he has helped to clear more than 2.4 million square feet of land. In the process, he has found 71 land mines and 38 items of unexploded ordnance.
Last year, Magawa received one of Britain's highest animal honors.
In a virtual ceremony, the U.K. charity PDSA gave Magawa its gold medal for his lifesaving work.
"This is the very first time in our 77-year history of honoring animals that we will have presented a medal to a rat," PDSA Chair John Smith said during the proceedings.
The group started giving out medals during World War II to recognize animals for gallantry in the face of conflict. Previous honorees have included dogs, pigeons, horses and a cat.
[...] "We really trust our rats, because very often after clearing a minefield, our teams will play a game of soccer on the cleared field to assure the quality of our work," he said.
Cox said the rats have freed more than 1 million people from the terror of living with land mines.
[*] APOPO is an acronym from Dutch which stands for "Anti-Persoonsmijnen Ontmijnende Product Ontwikkeling", or in English, Anti-Personnel Landmines Detection Product Development.
Related Stories
Reseachers training 'hero rats' to locate earthquake survivors - National:
When Donna Kean moved from Scotland to Tanzania, she had more than just the culture shock to deal with.
[...] "With the rats, I was very surprised at just how intelligent they are and how trainable and how quickly they can learn, it was amazing."
For the past year she has been working with the NGO APOPO, training rats to become invaluable members of earthquake search and rescue teams.
[...] The rats will wear a special little backpack containing a camera, a location transmitter and a two-way radio, allowing rescuers to communicate with the person who is trapped.
Rats are trained to activate a switch on their backpack when they find a person in the rubble, transmitting a precise location back to rescuers.
[...] Researchers at APOPO have taken into account that injured and traumatized earthquake survivors may not exactly welcome a rat scratching around beside them.
"One thing that we've been considering is that [the rats] might play a message like an audio recording that says something like, 'I am a rescue rat, I'm well trained. I'm here to help you,'" said Kean.
"Something along those lines, we'll think of the ideal message to put people at ease."
[...] Kean says the rats would not put any rescue dogs out of work, but would complement human and canine teams.
Rats. Why does it have to be rats?
Related:
After Years Of Detecting Land Mines, A Heroic Rat is Hanging Up His Sniffer
Rats Taught to Drive Tiny Cars
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 05 2021, @09:45AM (9 children)
Does he get a gold watch? Maybe a beachfront home on Honolulu? His own harem? Maybe a harem in Harlem and a lifetime pass to watch the Globetrotters? Does he keep any momentos from the minefields? How about healthcare? Was he a member of a union? Or, is he just another exploited member of a forgotten minority?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 05 2021, @01:10PM
He gets to gnaw on phone lines all day long and no one will chase him off.
(Score: 2) by looorg on Saturday June 05 2021, @02:32PM
Cheese and death.
(Score: 1, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 05 2021, @02:40PM
It's Cambodia... he's the main guest and principal course at this retirement dinner.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 05 2021, @03:27PM
You interested in taking over his job?
(Score: 2) by theluggage on Saturday June 05 2021, @04:31PM (1 child)
How long does an African giant pouched rat live?* Because for a regular rat, 5 years is telegram-from-the-queen territory even for a rat that doesn't sniff out landmines for a living...
(* insert ob. "ROUS? I don't think they exist!" meme here )
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday June 07 2021, @04:00PM
Looks like up to 7-8 years,
http://www.rmca.org/Articles/giant.htm [rmca.org]
https://animals.sandiegozoo.org/animals/african-giant-pouched-rat [sandiegozoo.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 05 2021, @08:22PM
His pension plan? He gets to be the pork in someone's noodle soup.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday June 06 2021, @07:55AM
From the Original Submission (always a good place to check, in case of editorial malfeasence.)
I would guess rats, other than humans in the rat-race, do not require timepieces, especially when retired.
(Score: 2) by hendrikboom on Monday June 07 2021, @07:27PM
If he wants a harem, it will likely be a harem of female rats.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 05 2021, @12:53PM
Hero rats [youtube.com]
(Score: 1, Touché) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 05 2021, @03:52PM (3 children)
i wonder if he (she?) could also rat out... errr... sniff out the landmine factory?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 05 2021, @05:41PM (1 child)
He'll have to come to the US I think - https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_land_mines#United_States [wikipedia.org]
Scroll up and down the page for other candidate nations.
FFS, the US and the UK actually developed NUCLEAR mines.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 05 2021, @05:53PM
A low yield nuclear mine detonating at the right time would be perfect for removing a lot of soldiers. Better than a Davy Crockett.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday June 05 2021, @05:59PM
Nope... he couldn't get a visa to travel to USA