Finding humans to clear minefields is hard. So in Mozambique, they’ve trained rats to sniff out unexploded ordinance, single out its location by pawing at the ground (careful!), and de-mine the field.
Even though the rats being used are the Giant Gambian variety, they’re still too light to set off most mines that they find. Trainers devised a harness that guides the rats systematically over a 100-meter square area, and a team of two can clear two such 100 square meter fields in a day. When they find the mines, they’re rewarded with bananas.
The project has been going on for several years in multiple mine-strewn African zones, with some pretty significant success. You can donate by adopting a mini-sniffing rat online at, appropriately, HeroRat.org. [Hero Rats via Afrigadget]
