{"id":13664,"date":"2014-04-05T04:52:30","date_gmt":"2014-04-05T04:52:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/giant-rats-trained-to-hunt-landmines-in\/"},"modified":"2014-04-05T04:52:12","modified_gmt":"2014-04-05T04:52:12","slug":"giant-rats-trained-to-hunt-landmines-in","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/giant-rats-trained-to-hunt-landmines-in\/","title":{"rendered":"Giant Rats Trained to Hunt Landmines in Mozambique"},"content":{"rendered":"<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-5113 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/jpg\/vc-4.jpg\" alt=\"\" \/><\/figure>\n<p>{{The giant Gambian pouched rats go through nine months of gruelling training, learning to sniff out the TNT in old landmines buried underground.}}<\/p>\n<p>The rats are the largest of their kind in the world \u2013 the same size as a domestic cat \u2013 have an excellent sense of smell and are quick learners. They are also light enough to walk over the mines without setting them off.<\/p>\n<p>Once the rats have finished their training APOPO, supported by the UK\u2019sDepartment for International Development, send them to Mozambique to start work on the minefields. <\/p>\n<p>One trained rat can search an area 14 times larger than a human mine clearer per day, hunting explosives and scratching at the ground to raise the alert. <\/p>\n<p>Mozambique went through nearly thirty years of war from the mid-1960s to 1990s. While the fighting has long since stopped, the tens of thousands of landmines left behind continue to claim innocent lives. Miles of valuable land has been turned into a deathtrap.<\/p>\n<p>But in 2014 Mozambique is set to finally be declared landmine-free, thanks to the work of international donors, charities and these furry heroes. <\/p>\n<p>The rats have cleared nearly 2,500 mines as well as over 14,000 pieces of unexploded ordnance, small arms and ammunition.<\/p>\n<p>The rats\u2019 talents aren\u2019t limited to hunting landmines. APOPO are also using them to sniff out tuberculosis in saliva samples and even to find survivors in disaster zones.<\/p>\n<figure class=\"spip-document spip-document-5112 aligncenter\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/png\/cc.png\" alt=\"\" \/><\/figure>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>{{The giant Gambian pouched rats go through nine months of gruelling training, learning to sniff out the TNT in old landmines buried underground.}} The rats are the largest of their kind in the world \u2013 the same size as a domestic cat \u2013 have an excellent sense of smell and are quick learners. They are [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2000051448,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[100],"byline":[170],"hashtag":[],"class_list":["post-13664","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-science-technology","tag-africa","byline-igihe"],"bylines":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"contributors":[{"id":170,"name":"IGIHE","slug":"igihe","description":"","image":{"id":0,"url":"https:\/\/secure.gravatar.com\/avatar\/?s=96&d=mm&f=y&r=g","alt":"Default avatar","title":"Default avatar","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","sizes":[]},"user_id":8}],"featured_image":{"id":2000051448,"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13664.jpg","alt":"","caption":"","mime_type":"image\/jpeg","width":0,"height":0,"sizes":{"thumbnail":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13664.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13664.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"medium_large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13664.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"large":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13664.jpg","width":1,"height":1},"full":{"url":"https:\/\/en-images.igihe.com\/IMG\/logo\/arton13664.jpg","width":0,"height":0}}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13664","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=13664"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/13664\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2000051448"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=13664"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=13664"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=13664"},{"taxonomy":"byline","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/byline?post=13664"},{"taxonomy":"hashtag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.igihe.com\/english\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/hashtag?post=13664"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}