Civil wars on the African continent left hundreds of thousands of mines behind. Today they are being neutralized by sapper rats
In the photo: A rat on a fishing rod is a live mine detector. Using fishing rods is more convenient than traditional rope stretching.
The sun is just rising over the horizon, and work is already in full swing. Ronaldinho runs forward, ridiculously wrinkling his nose and bristling mustache hussar splendor. Suddenly stops, sniffs and begins to scratch the ground with his paws. Good luck, mine was found. A click is heard - you can run for the reward. The banana has already appeared in the trainer's hand.
Ronaldinho is an African hamster rat (cricetomysgambianus). He is a professional sapper.
Using rats to find mines was invented by the Belgian-Tanzanian research organization APOPO, founded in 1998 with financial support from the Belgian government. For many years, dogs have been working alongside people in minefields. But rats! The African hamster rat (so named because of the cheek pouches in which it carries food) is a nocturnal animal. She weakly sees, but perfectly hears and distinguishes smells. The training is built on this. At five weeks of age, the rat is fed with a clicking sound. Later, the habitual click is heard only when the rat detects the smell of explosives. The workout lasts from eight months to a year. The rat then becomes a certified deminer. It is capable of sniffing a metal mine, a plastic mine, a grenade, and even a simple cartridge for a meter.
The main training base is located on the grounds of the Edward Sokoine Agricultural University in Morogoro, Tanzania, but the main work is carried out in neighboring Mozambique. After 16 years of civil war, a large number of mines and unexploded ordnance remained there. According to estimates of newspapers and public organizations: from 500 thousand to a million. The actual number is impossible to calculate.
Unlike urban slum dwellers who live in captivity for two to three years, the African hamster rat lives up to eight years. Until retirement age, which is six to seven years old, the rat can work successfully. Her amazing sense of smell and low weight (from one to one and a half kilograms) make the work of a little sapper effective.
Professionals come from Tanzania to Mozambique who are capable of working in "combat" conditions. But even they need constant training in order not to lose their skills. A training ground has been built in the Mo-Zambic village of Chamane. A hectare of land is divided into 10x10 meter squares. Each has two or three mines buried. Under real conditions, it takes up to three days for a sapper with a metal detector to clear such an area. Today a team of a rat and two coaches spends no more than half an hour. Trainers stretch a rope over the section, to which they attach a leash with a rat. She runs forward and sniffs a strip half a meter wide. If nothing suspicious is found, then the rat that has reached the end of the section is turned back and the next lane is checked. If a rat behaves outside the box, worries, spins in place, digs the ground - this is a signal that the mine is here.
In training, it is known exactly where the mine is hidden, and the rodent is awarded a reward for good work: a peanut or a slice of banana. They are not rewarded during real work. The exact location of the mine is unknown. And as soon as a furry sapper makes a mistake and receives a reward for it, the animal begins to cheat, giving false signals.
The team goes to the field twice a day: at 6.30 and 16.00 to avoid the heat of the day. Nocturnal rodents hate the bright sun - their delicate pink ears burn, and cancer may even develop. Therefore, before leaving on the field, sensitive ears are lubricated with regular sunscreen.
Each rat works no more than an hour a day (checking up to 200 square meters of territory) for a five-day work week. “He who does not work does not eat” is the law. A small portion of food is awarded for each mine found on the training field. During training, the sites are constantly changing so that lazy rodents do not remember the location of the mines.
Only on weekends and in bad weather, rats are allowed to rest and are fed with nuts, carrots, corn, fish and sometimes insects. And after real work, the sapper is entitled to a delicacy - an apple or an avocado.
Now APOPO employs 35 licensed rats and 50 employees. To speed up the search process, they try a new way of working: one person - one rat. The trainer holds the animal on a string attached to the fishing rod. The design resembles a living metal detector.
Rat Phoebe doesn't want to work. She stops, begins to lick herself, tries to catch a beetle or even run away from the site.
- It's because today is Monday, - Phoebe defends her coach Jared Mkumbo. - It's hard for all of them to work on Monday. Too good food on weekends.
Animals differ in efficiency. According to statistics, out of ten trained rats, seven successfully pass the tests, and three are too slow, unable to concentrate. Careless workers are left to produce offspring. Professionals have no time for reproduction - they have to work. Everything is like people have: either a career or personal life.
As a rule, rats do not get tired of routine work. This is their advantage over dogs. The dog is too happy about the mine and for some time loses the ability to work. And the mine found must be immediately neutralized to prevent an explosion. The rat is not endangered and remains focused on work. Her goal is to earn as many nuts or bananas as possible. Another advantage of rats is that they do not stick to one host.
On the basis of APOPO, furry workers live comfortably. They have separate cages with auto drinkers. In each cell, a clay ball resembling an empty pumpkin is a bedroom. There are playgrounds in the yard where you can jump and chase each other after work.
Sapper rats have been searching for mines in Mozambique since 2004, clearing suspicious areas for road construction. An armored excavator helps them on a mission. Instead of a bucket, a knife is adapted for cutting bushes. The excavator clears the area from excess vegetation. The site is divided into squares, the marking cords are stretched, and narrow paths are left for the passage. Each square is checked twice: after the first rat, the second is allowed. Suspicious places are marked with clothespins on the marking cords. At the end of the day, after checking these places by a sapper with a mine detector, the mines found are detonated.
Mozambique's Ministry of Defense provides APOO with its explosives storage facilities. This is where the support ends.
- In Africa, mine clearance is not carried out by the army, but by Western non-governmental organizations. The army is just laying mines, says Laurence Combane, a rat-water trainer from Tanzania. He has been involved in the project from the very beginning. The first experiences of young Tanzanian students and their Belgian leaders were not taken seriously by those around them. In Africa, rats are traditionally considered either a pest or an additive to the meager daily diet.
“All methods of finding antipersonnel mines have flaws,” he says. - Metal detectors cannot tell a mine from a rusty nail. Bulldozers are only effective on level ground. Dogs get tired quickly, and if they make mistakes, they fly up into the air. Rats are another matter.
Neighboring countries became interested in the efficiency of the rat-sappers. The organization is invited to work in Angola and Congo. The specialists of APOPO themselves continue their research. Their rats are already able to diagnose serious infectious diseases, such as tuberculosis, from saliva samples. In addition, animals are taught to look for victims under the rubble of collapsed buildings after earthquakes.
Source: "GEO" November 2008.