These Huge Rats Can Sniff Out Land Mines | National Geographic

2m read

·Nov 11, 2024

We bring the Gambian Jan rats from Africa to sniff out the landmines in Cambodia. There is a two million landmines spread out in Cambodia. Two hundred to three hundred people got injured by landmines and you SOS every year.

These rats look similar to the rodents we know; the difference is that these are white rats. They do not see the rats that are used to be in our houses, so they are bigger than the rodents that we know. They are faster than a human. Why are they faster? Because the rats are only going for TNT smell, and the human using his metal detector is going for all kinds of metals.

In a 5 by 20 meters box, a trained rat can finish the box in 16 to 25 minutes only. If we use the manual metal detector, it can take two days or three days to finish. For us, just leave your rat if you get free for quite some time, and then we get, oh! We can tell a dog to sit; it can sit. You tell a dog to go; it can go. But a rat cannot understand all those kinds of things.

So, we only communicate with them by using a clicker. When the rat smells TNT, it starts to scratch, and then I have to click and give food to the rats. By the size, I feel very, very emotional. I got very, very, very, very, very excited. I don’t know who or who is who. I don’t know. They not only click for food; now I want to touch the rats.

If I see four regions right on the rat that is hit by a car, then it pains me a lot. They laugh like his brother or her sister. Sometimes they carry like his baby or her baby. As we know, landmines are dangerous for our lives. If our rats are able to discover landmines, then they save lives.

I hope that in the future, the people of Cambodia will get enough land to live and improve their lives.

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