Using rats to detect anti-personnel mines

Meanwhile, in Sub-Saharan Africa, these rats are saving lives. Their mission? Detecting anti-personnel mines. Meet the HeroRATS.

Transcript

00:00They are heroes, they are working for the greater good, they are working to protect

00:14civilians, to protect children, to protect people who are engendering their life.

00:20If you have landmines on one end, you cannot grow anything, you cannot have cattle, just

00:27sending your kids to school can cause you fear.

00:37They are still an issue in more than 60 countries in the world.

00:57The idea of using rats is born back in the mid-90s, so 1995, and that's when I found

01:12about Vigens.

01:14He was exploring solutions to the global landmine problem because he was faced with all those

01:21inefficient, expensive, slow technologies.

01:27There are two lines to set off the landmines because they are going to be up to 1.4, 1.5

01:39kilos, and a landmine is going to be set off after maybe 4 or 5 kilos, so it's safe for

01:44them.

01:45They are locally available, they are very intelligent, very easy to train animals, they

01:51are very small so it's easy to take care of them, and easy to transport as well.

01:57Once the rats have graduated, how does it work concretely in the field?

02:08You would have one rat between two trainers, and then we'll go just back and forth between

02:13those two trainers.

02:14Once the rat smells something, so the scent of TNT, because it's the only thing it will

02:19stop for, they'll scratch the ground and will know that something is there, and so the manual

02:25deminer is going to arrive and check on the indication.

02:28The rats are very fast, they can search the size of a tennis court in 30 minutes, and

02:36that would take 1 to 4 days to manual deminer.

02:47Those 25 million square metres also take into account the amazing progress we made in Mozambique

02:55which led to the amazing victory of 2015 where Mozambique was actually declared mine-free,

03:02and this was made a year ahead of schedule thanks to the efficiency of the Kiro rats.

03:06There are a few limits coming with using rats to detect landmines.

03:14The first that comes to mind is the fact that we are dealing with a nocturnal animal, which

03:19means that we cannot use them during the day too long, and especially under high temperature.

03:26And we also have a limit which is linked to the climate.

03:30Because the rats are tropical animals, we can only use them where they are quite similar

03:36climate to sub-Saharan Africa.

03:39At least on the upper side, we really treat them as the heroes they deserve to be, and

03:46that is why, for example, they have a very good retirement plan.

03:51So for example, when we see they're not as eager to go to work, we just have them stay

03:57in a retirement centre in Tanzania.

04:03And this is also why we put animal welfare obviously at the centre of everything that

04:06we do, to make sure that they are treated with the absolute best standards.

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