Cambodia 2020 - 23. Rats (HeroRATs)

23.  Rats (HeroRATs)

Year of the Rat

Mine detection by rats?      Apopo?     

I never heard of this until we came to Cambodia. Here in Cambodia, everybody knows what Apopo is. I know 2020 is the Chinese year of the rat, but that has nothing to do with Apopo. 

On the way back from Bayon Temple, Mr. Touch stopped and asked if we wanted to see this. He mentioned in his broken English that this would be a good time to start a tour. I did not understand what he meant but found out more after we entered their offices.

Welcome Sign

Rats are nocturnal creatures, they sleep during the day. It is not that one can just walk into Apopo and they demonstrate how a rat sniffs for a buried mine. But in the morning hours the rats here are trained to still be up but are getting sleepy. A rat’s attention span is about 3 hours max for any tasks asked from them.

HeroRATS Can Systematically Check a Tennis Court Sized Area In <30 Min. A Metal Detector Would Take 4 Days.

The introduction to the tour is a bit long-winded and it takes time to set it all up, inform everybody who is on the tour how it works, give background info about Apopo, etc. They made us read some info on posters first, so we could understand what Apopo was all about. Language issues may have made them seem ‘rude’ but I am sure they had their reasons to make sure we understood more of the details. 
 

Awww - So Cute

This, again, was like taking a class in school.

This link, and there are many more links on the web, show what those little heroes are all about. Who would have thought those rats would be so good and helpful.

ONLY after we understood the introduction did they all show us what these trained rats can do.

Demo of Finding a Buried Explosive

We had a short demonstration on the premises, the rat finding a randomly buried, but no longer fused grenade. We saw that the method to find ordinances was very careful and practical and the rat was very efficient. Our rat found the planted grenade in no time, running to the handler for the banana reward it knows it gets once it finds something.

A HeroRAT Working in the Field - Hard to See So Look Above the Blue Arrow

Who thought of this?

The first to start using rats to find these explosives was a Belgian Zen Priest named Bart Weetjens around 1995 who explained himself in this TED talk video.

When An Explosive Device Is Found, It Is Detonated

A rat’s weight is too light to trigger an ordinance. While only working in the early daylight hours, parts of the rats are covered in sunscreen lotion, to prevent sunburn on their delicate ears and tails. Normally, being nocturnal they would not need that, but in the sun, even in the early morning hours, their handlers look out for them. The handlers want to have happy rats. 

A rat’s life is constantly sniffing for food; they sniff, sniff, and sniff all the time. Their noses are extremely sensitive. Once properly trained they never miss a mine or grenade or any other explosive. 

Rats Are Very Curious

Training is reinforced by a clicker in the handler’s hands. Sniff, sniff… hear a click…food. Repeat. That is how it goes minute after minute in the trained rat’s brain.

The rat is conditioned to respond to the clicker almost from birth. It is a long training the rats have to go through, it takes 9 months to make it work, and they have daily lessons. Their handlers are dedicated people who have developed this skill of training rats and they call their rats their friends. 

The process seems odd and unreliable but like I said, the rats never make a mistake, they find mines, or explosives better than the best electronic equipment otherwise used. 

And Very Cute

It’s just amazing to see.

These rats find around 3000 mines per year, on a global scale. They have freed so far 18 million square meters of mines worldwide, saving hundreds of lives and even more people from being invalids. 80% of people stepping on mines are innocent people. Of those 46% are children. 

The work the rats do enables the land to be usable again. It is cleared for agriculture, development or access for other basic needs.

So many other countries in the world still have mines in the ground. Afghanistan is the worst, followed by Cambodia. But there are many other countries still full of landmines. Those rats are being used in many other countries besides Cambodia. 

He's Wearing His Working Harness

Their delicate noses, their sense of smell are very useful. It does take training, dedicated, long time training to do that. The Apopo Center we visited is a museum to demonstrate how these rats operate, not just any rat but the African Giant Pouched Rats. 

Those rats are being trained carefully; all training is done in Africa.

The only training center in the world for these rats is in Morogoro, Tanzania. Even the engine noises made by the cars or trucks or mopeds used during shipments are carefully introduced during the training. 

All of Cambodia at this time has only 50 trained rats to sniff, sniff, and sniff.

Mine Contamination as of November 2016

The rats do not perform well under stress. Even the handlers keep quiet while the rats work. Chatting among the handlers is highly discouraged. But once the rat is ‘happy’, it can concentrate on sniff, sniff… click…food. Rats are being shipped all over the globe to work on a daily basis.

Ah, yes, the rats are also used to detect TB and are better than any other means of finding Tuberculosis. That training would be done in Morogoro, too. Those rats are truly little heroes.   

HeroRATs.