Rats have always been deemed dirty but one rat redeemed this species on Friday for becoming the first rodent to receive a gold medal for his work in sniffing out landmines and saving people’s lives in Cambodia.
Magawa, a dubbed “hero rat” was on Friday presented with a small blue-collar and mini-gold medal by the British veterinary charity the People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals (PDSA).
“Magawa’s work directly saves and changes the lives of men, women, and children who are impacted by these landmines. Every discovery he makes reduces the risk of injury or death for local people,” PDSA director general Jan McLoughlin, said in a statement.
“We are thrilled to award him the PDSA Gold Medal.”
The rat was trained to detect landmines by a Belgium-based charity APOPO. The on-profit organization also trains the rodents to detect tuberculosis.
The charity said, the African Giant-Pouched Rat uses a perfect sense of smell and memory to discovered 39 landmines and 28 items of unexploded ordnance and search an area as big as a tennis court in 30 minutes, something that would take a human using a metal detector up to four days.
“Unlike metal detectors, the rats ignore scrap metal and only sniff out explosives making them fast and efficient landmine detectors,” said Christophe Cox, chief executive of APOPO.
“This not only saves lives but returns much-needed safe land to the communities as quickly and cost-effectively as possible,” Cox added.
APOPO said it takes up to nine months to train rats like Magawa adding that the creatures can live up to eight years.
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The rats are light-footed hence do not set off the landmines and no rat has so far been harmed during the operations.
Magawa was formally presented with his miniature medal in a virtual ceremony from London, becoming the first rat in the PDSA’s 77-year history to receive the prestigious honor. Previous winners of the award include police dogs, horses, pigeons, and a cat.
Around five million landmines are believed to have been laid in Cambodia during internal conflicts in Southeast Asian Country between 1975 and 1998 – leaving agricultural lands unsafe to cultivate and impacting communities and livelihoods.
In 1997, Britain’s Princess Diana raised the global profile of landmines in a campaign in the southern African country, Angola, when she stepped through a live minefield. In 2019 her son Prince Harry walked in her footsteps, visiting the same country that is now free of landmines following her work.
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