Giant Rats Being Used To Help Stop Wildlife Poaching

Many tourists enjoy going to West Africa to see wildlife. Unfortunately, some species are starting to disappear because of poaching.
Some poachers catch these animals for pet trade. Others kill them for their parts, such as rhino horns and elephant tusks. These parts are often taken to other countries to be sold.
For more than 20 years, African giant pouched rats (cricetomys ansorgei), have been used to help clear landmines from over 100 million square meters of land. With their help, over 163,000 landmines have been removed, and 2.2 million people can now safely use their land.
Isabelle Szott used to work with a group called APOPO, where they trained these giant rats to locate landmines. The folks at APOPO came up with the idea of using these rats at ports, where products enter and leave a country.
These rats have an incredible sense of smell, so Szott’s team trained 11 of them to sense different odors. They were trained to sense the smell of scales from a pangolin (a threatened small animal), rhino horns, elephant tusks, and African blackwood (used in some musical instruments).
At the conclusion of this study, 7 of the rats were able to distinguish between the four scents, and 146 other odors.
Lab training is just the beginning. Some rats are already being trained in fake warehouse, and in real ports.
The good news is that these rats have low training and maintenance costs. They will also work with any trained handler.
If these rats can equal their success in landmine detection by helping us to protect our wildlife, it will be a great achievement!