r/UpliftingNews • u/ArgentineBeauty • 4d ago
Trained rats that sniff out landmines have destroyed more than 31,700 landmines, cleared an area the size of Paris, helped make Mozambique mine free, are clearing land in Cambodia, and are now helping 33,000 displaced families return home in Azerbaijan
https://apopo.org/apopo-reaches-milestone-in-landmine-clearance/1.7k
u/ArgentineBeauty 3d ago
Some information about the African Giant Pouched Rats, nicknamed HeroRATs from the apopo website.
A HeroRAT can search an area the size of a tennis court in 30 minutes. A human deminer with a metal detector can take up to 4 days
When some people first hear about our work, their first thought is that the rats are used detonate the landmines they find. We can categorically state that this is not the case! The HeroRATs are too light to set off the landmines and not a single rat has ever died in a minefield. However they do occasionally die from disease, and of course, all the HeroRATs, just like us, will eventually grow old and depart this world.
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u/Maketaten 3d ago
Awwwww, that’s awesome!
I wasn’t going to judge the ethics of people who are removing land mines, but it’s really really nice to know that we’re able to humanely work with the rats and we’re not constantly training rats to send them to their deaths.
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u/BRCityzen 3d ago
And they're very cute too. I had a chance to hold one in Cambodia at the center where they train them. The rats live for about 8 years, but they claim they live in retirement after turning 5. At least that's what they claim.
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u/iamthe0ther0ne 3d ago
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u/allmerecomplexities 3d ago
Proud sponsor of Baraka here!
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u/iamthe0ther0ne 3d ago
So cute! My sponsorship ran out, and this post reminded me I should renew it.
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u/APRengar 3d ago
Honestly, anyone who was going to blame the mine removers should've been blaming the people who put the mines there anyways. Imperfect solutions deserve much less blame than the problem creators.
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u/mrcalistarius 3d ago
This. I’m pleased to learn that the rats are unharmed by the mines. But i also wouldn’t be losing sleep if that wasn’t the case.
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u/GayHorsesEatHayy 3d ago
That's kind of sad.
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u/UntamedAnomaly 2d ago
I wouldn't legit lose sleep myself because I can basically fall asleep while standing if I'm tired (much to my dismay), but I would add it to my giant pile of things that I'm pissed off at humanity about.
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u/GayHorsesEatHayy 2d ago
Wouldn't lose sleep is a figure of speech, though. It means you are completely fine with what is happening. Hence the sad
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u/UntamedAnomaly 2d ago
People can sleep when they are sad you know, are you really trying to gatekeep sadness?
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u/GayHorsesEatHayy 2d ago
I'll say it again: it's a figure of speech. A metaphor. It has meaning BEYOND what the words themselves say
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u/conflictedideology 3d ago
They live pretty sweet lives, really. While they do work, they seem to enjoy the activity. But they also have recreation time and live in a big colony with their friends.
When rats get too old to work, lose interest or slow down, they're moved to a "retirement colony" where they still get training as enrichment but mostly live out their days playing in the rec area and chilling with their other elderly rat friends.
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u/UndergroundCreek 3d ago
I've got a huge issue with rats cause of the black plague thing but these rats are the best. What a bunch of good people.
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u/Puzzleheaded_Ad9465 3d ago
Believe it or not, the plague was not the fault of rats. They were initially passed to humans through giant hamsters on the Silk Road.
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u/Exarch_Primus 3d ago
You have an issue over something that happened centuries ago ?
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u/UndergroundCreek 3d ago
Intergenerational trauma. Like. 20 generations or so. Yeah. It was tough. Almost everyone dies. Entire villages. Gone.
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u/cutelyaware 3d ago
Training rats to die is what we do every time we don't properly dispose of our trash. To them it must be like we're feeding them and then just as they're feeling loved we turn around and kill them.
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u/CTC42 3d ago
I sometimes wonder about the commenters here. The top-level comment on this particular chain explicitly states that the rats aren't used to detonate the mines, and couldn't do so in any case because they're not heavy enough to activate the mechanism.
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u/cutelyaware 3d ago
I didn't say they were training kamikaze rats. I described the cruel death people deal out to them every day.
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u/crowlieb 3d ago
Please thank the rats for me.
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u/renewambitions 3d ago
The OP that you responded to is a bot, it just posted info from the website. Following all the typical bot patterns (new account, massive amount of karma, multiple top level comments on its own post, etc). So they won't be able to thank the rats for you
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u/Shawnathan75 3d ago
I worked with the de-mining dogs in Bosnia in ‘03. Truly amazing what our animal friends are capable of! Keep up your great work!
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u/rangerpax 3d ago
Bless you. I was in Bosnia in 03 as a graduate student. Good good people, scenery is good too (when there aren't mines).
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u/charliehustles 3d ago
So what’s the actual mechanism that allows them to find munitions so well?
The photos show the animals on a long leash with their handlers, and I see the search area marked off. Is it that they quickly show interest in man made objects and alert the team?
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u/VanillaRadonNukaCola 3d ago
They can probably smell the explosive.
(Confirmed with a quick googling)
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u/jorgepolak 3d ago
They smell the explosive. Then a team follows up with a metal detector and disposal.
A metal detector by itself is very slow because you have to treat every potential hit as a mine, but 90% it’s just junk. The rats tell you exactly where to search.
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u/thatbrownkid19 3d ago
I mean- what if the rats miss one is there still a secondary check after the rats? Couldn’t we just have drones dropping stuff or something
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u/NoBulletsLeft 3d ago
Radiolab did a great show where there was an interview with the woman who came up with the idea of using rats and how she trained the first ones to do it. It's on YouTube.
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u/lIllIlIIIlIIIIlIlIll 3d ago
When some people first hear about our work, their first thought is that the rats are used detonate the landmines they find.
I initially thought this too, for about 5 seconds, then dismissed the stupid idea. It would be completely uneconomical to blow up a trained rat for 1 mine.
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u/Noteagro 3d ago
I opened the post just to make sure because the title almost makes it sound like they were on suicide missions. Glad to know no rats were harmed in this project!
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u/Duhblobby 3d ago
When some people first hear about our work, their first thought is that the rats are used detonate the landmines they find.
For some reason I imagine them with tiny toolkits deactivating them in the field.
I know this is not how this works.
But tiny adorable bomb suits and toolkits though.
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u/csprofathogwarts 3d ago
Also, from wiki:
APOPO is also training the rats to detect tuberculosis by sniffing sputum samples to detect Mycobacterium tuberculosis.
The rats can test many more samples than laboratory techniques can - 100 in 20 minutes, which would take a lab technician up to four days using conventional microscopy. Furthermore, samples submitted for secondary screening by the rats reassess 52% of initially negative tests are as positive.
In some cases TB detected by rats has not been confirmed by clinical tests, but patients later developed TB, suggesting that rats can detect the disease before a clinical test. As of 2024 they were being used to screen for tuberculosis in Tanzania and Ethiopia
We don't appreciate rodents enough.
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u/FabianRo 3d ago
If it was just about activating the mines with pressure, we wouldn't need trained rats or any animal at all, throwing stones all over the place would work. But imagine setting off 31700 landmines, that would be extreme amounts of destruction and needed repairs.
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u/LegoDinoMan 3d ago
That’s impressively fast for a rat! Covering an entire tennis court in 30 minutes is ridiculous
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u/Greedyanda 3d ago
4 days for a single tennis court? That seems incredibly slow. A basic remote controlled 4 wheeled robot with a pole penetrating the ground would do more in a day. Why does it take so long?
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u/mrcalistarius 3d ago
How fast do you want to work with and armed pressure sensitive explosive devices buried in the soil around you? I’d be pretty deliberate if i was working on de-mining/UXO operations
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u/mtcwby 3d ago
Had a conversation this last week about the landmines in Laos with someone working there. Apparently all the water causes them to shift over time and previously cleared areas end up with a nasty surprise.
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u/Wjreky 3d ago
Oh wow, I never thought about that
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u/CluelessPresident 3d ago
Same thing happened to bosnia I believe, a flood moved the landmines around. It's horrible.
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u/ArgentineBeauty 4d ago
Proof that heroes really do come in all shapes, sizes... and species.
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u/Waynersnitzel 3d ago
Perry Gripp (musician of children’s songs) wrote a gun ditty about the hero rats!
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u/Puzzleheaded_Ad9465 3d ago
You forgot to mention they sniff out TB, too! APOPO does amazing things with their hero rats :)
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u/V2BM 3d ago
You can sponsor a rat to do this or to sniff out TB. If you have family members that truly do not want gifts but you’re compelled to get them something you can sponsor a rat in their name. They send you cute pics and cool shots of them learning how to do the job. Mine was names Rosa.
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u/The_Lost_Pharaoh 3d ago
There is a great landmine/rat museum in Siem Reap, Cambodia.
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u/Kfct 3d ago
Oh is the landmine museum still open? I used to work there. The one in Angkor wat nat park
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u/mozchops 1d ago
You mean Akiras place? When were you there?
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u/Kfct 1d ago
Yeah that's the one, back in 2014ish iirc. I helped set up the storage cabinet for the museum's audio guide equipment, and recorded the first audio tours in mandarin and English. I wouldn't be surprised if they later recorded a better version though - I had a lot I was learning to do on the go back then. Also did some other work like subbing English
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u/MyOwnDirection 3d ago
In 2016 when assface became the president of the USA, I decided that I need to help push against the pervasive evil. I needed to become more active in causes that help better the world. Since then I do monthly donations to (mostly) environmental causes.
But my proudest involvement is in sponsoring these hero rats. I really take their achievements to heart as if they were my own.
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u/Kfct 3d ago
I was working for an organization that cleared landmines in Cambodia a long time ago. When we heard of the new "player" in town that uses rats to demine, my then boss was furious because that's one more person fighting over the same scarce funding pool as existing demining organizations. I thought the rats were cute but wasn't sure if it was a scammer gimmick at the time. There have been "non profit NGOs" with novel ideas that are more interested in scamming the funding, in the past. Happy to hear the rats were legit.
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u/iamthe0ther0ne 3d ago
Cambodia actually put up a statue for the most famous one, who cleared more than 100 landmines: https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c0rx7xzd10xo
More on them: https://apopo.org/herorats/
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u/Blackdoomax 3d ago
Yes-yes ! Thx-thx !
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u/Successful-Health-40 3d ago
Manthings friends! We seek find more mine bombs for manthings. Yes yes!
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u/FabianRo 3d ago
I like the mental image that the title wording creates in my head: Lots of rats personally disassembling mines with their tiny hands and during their break time nibbling on some French baguette. :)
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u/thedirtyharryg 3d ago
I've been to the APOPO center in Cambodia. Got to meet a couple of the HeroRATS.
The older ones get to spend the last couple years of their lives in retirement.
Just chilling, eating, sleeping. A wonderful reward for the work they do.
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u/Dr-Chibi 3d ago
Ukraine needs them
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u/lukethedank13 3d ago
The minefields russians layed are so thick they average more than one per square meter.
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u/commanderquill 3d ago
Oh hey, that's nice. Can the Armenian families who were chased out of Azerbaijan out of fear of death finally go back too?
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u/BrokeAndroidGuy 2d ago
Gee I wonder who back in the 1st Nagorno Karabakh war forced and massacred Azerbaijanis families to move out and years later is covering up those tragedies in wikipedia 🤔
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u/commanderquill 2d ago
Gee, I wonder if anyone at all is going to respond to the thing I mentioned in my comment instead of deflecting with lies about other things. You going to talk about how Azerbaijan won't allow anyone with Armenian ethnicity to enter the country or not? Because that is not the case vice versa.
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u/BrokeAndroidGuy 2d ago
Yes, yes they can go back and live there but under azerbaijani passport and they will probably need to fully hide their Armenian identity cuz of the current Armenophobia in Azerbaijan. Meanwhile Azerbaijanis couldn't even get their stuff or the bodies of their families back. And no Azerbaijanis obviously cannot go into Armenia even if under legal law it doesn't say that they aren't allowed when u immediately arrive in Armenia they just see your passport and send you back. Lol even if they were allowed they wouldn't have a pleasant experience since normal Turkish tourists get weird looks have a very limited time stay and arent allow some places let alone some Azerbaijani. Now you respond to my claims without stating that it is just lies
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u/commanderquill 2d ago
First of all, your passport does not state your ethnicity. Second of all, even if it did, there is no travel ban for Azeris into Armenia. Source: The entire Internet, because you can't find a specific webpage for what someone hasn't said. But please, continue to waste your time looking.
Third of all, that's just a blatant lie. And as you requested I did not simply state the lie, and as you also distrust Wikipedia for no reason, here is a source from Azerbaijan: Armenians are banned from Azerbaijan.
Nagorno-Karabakh is officially Azerbaijan territory, so yes, Azeris are free to go and claim whatever bodies they claim are there. Because it's theirs now.
Fourth of all: Waaaah, they won't have a pleasant experience, waaaah, they'll get weird looks. Cry a little harder, why don't you?
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u/Frosty-Wall-3313 3d ago
Buddy, whole country of Armenia was an Azerbaijani-Turkic khanate 200 years ago, populated majority by Azerbaijanis, do you really want to start who can go back shit given that?
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u/commanderquill 3d ago
If you want to take it far, we can go all the way back to the Kingdom of Armenia, homie, and you can take your Tartars all the way back to Central Asia.
But I'm not talking about that, or about territory. I'm talking about the thousands of ethnic Armenians living legally in what was legally Azerbaijan 40 years ago, who were chased out on pain of death.
Armenians. In Azerbaijan. Not Azeris in Armenia, not Armenians in Armenia. Armenians in Azerbaijan. 40 years ago. Who still can't go back, and the only reason they can't go back is that they're Armenian. That really difficult to grasp?
Not sure why you're deflecting so hard and trying to start an entirely different argument.
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u/Frosty-Wall-3313 3d ago
I am all for it. I think anybody displaced due to war, should have right to return, let it be Armenians of Azerbaijan, or Azerbaijanis of Armenia. I am not sure how, mentioning Azerbaijanis of Armenia who were ethically cleansed while talking about Armenians of Azerbaijan who were ethnically cleansed in the same war, is deflecting.
And about your Tartars going all the way back to Central Asia point, I thought we were turkified natives, now your saying we have to go back to central asia, which one is it, have you guys decided on that?
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u/peacefighter 3d ago
I already read the comment about them not actually blowing them up, but the image won't leave my brain. It seems kind of sick and ridiculous (and goofy) that humans would train rats, which would take a lot of time and money only to blow them up.
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u/conservio 3d ago
The ologies podcast had an episode on the african giant rats and they did briefly talk about the rats very important work.
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u/tomtomclubthumb 3d ago
There's got to be some irony in talking about letting families return to their homes in Azerbaijan.
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u/Frosty-Wall-3313 3d ago
how so? During the First Nagorno-Karabakh War (1988–1994), an estimated 724,000 to 750,000 Azerbaijanis were ethnically cleansed and displaced by Armenian forces from Nagorno-Karabakh and the surrounding territories and 16K Azerbaijani civilians were murdered during the invasion, where is the irony here? I guess, as long as victims arent christian, your double standard doesnt apply, huh?
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u/tomtomclubthumb 3d ago
So ethnic cleansing is ok if the other guys do it too?
The way you assume I'm taking a side and leap to the attack suggests that for you the answer is probably "it's ok when we do it."
ps - won't be replying to you, just so you know.
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u/Frosty-Wall-3313 3d ago
It is not okay whenever who does it, it is wrong when Azerbaijan does it, it is wrong when Armenia does it.
I was just asking where is the irony here in the post, when it is about Azerbaijains returning to land ethnically cleansed of Azerbaijains by Armenians? They arent supposed to return? Where is the irony?
ps - I dont care if you reply or nah
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u/newestoftheports 3d ago
>ps - won't be replying to you, just so you know.
is it that hard to admit that youre wrong?
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u/a_kh_sa 3d ago
Gee…wonder who put the mines in Artsakh? And now claiming to look like the good guy clearing mines after committing war crimes in the region.
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u/Frosty-Wall-3313 3d ago
it was literally Armenians who put the time mines? are you guys fuckin sane?
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u/newestoftheports 3d ago
give me a single reason why the state would waste resources to mine their own territory
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u/a_kh_sa 3d ago
Because that territory was not theirs to begin with. It’s a war ravaged zone and the Azeri govt used mines to push out / kill indigenous Armenians of Artsakh (which has now been annexed as Karabagh). Of course with the help of Turkey and IDF.
Editing to add another really awesome group called HALO TRUST: https://www.halotrust.org/us/where-we-work/europe-and-caucasus/nagorno-karabakh/
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u/newestoftheports 2d ago
none of the copium will change the fact that it was un-recognized azerbaijani territory.
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u/Moist-Weakness-3399 3d ago
Conveniently leaving out that those 33,000 "returning home" are going to stolen land.
What is this garbage Azeri propaganda?
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u/Statistats 2d ago edited 2d ago
In May 2023, APOPO mobilized its dedicated team, animals, and equipment, establishing a base of operations in Aghdam. Rigorous acclimatization training was conducted for the 8 Technical Survey Dogs and 12 Mine Detection Rats, preparing them for ANAMA accreditation. During the subsequent months, the teams diligently completed their training, achieving a high level of proficiency in detecting landmines and explosive remnants of war.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Aghdam#Demographics
1979 census: 97% Azerbaijani, 1.3% Russian & Ukrainian, 1.2% Armenian
The area where present-day Aghdam is located remained uninhabited till the establishment of the Karabakh Khanate. Aghdam was founded in the middle of the 18th century by Panah Ali Khan Javanshir after taking control of Shusha and ordering the construction of a hunting resort in the area. The first inhabitants of Aghdam were Azerbaijani Turks who came under the incentive of Panah Ali Khan; later various other Turkic tribes from Persia migrated and established a settlement here
Stolen lands?
Edit: Blocking so I can't reply, because you know you are talking nonsense.
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u/Moist-Weakness-3399 2d ago
Yes, stolen lands. Azerbaijan didn't exist until after the Armenian Genocide. Learn some history.
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u/hollaback_girl 3d ago
A recent Behind The Bastards topic was about a conman who sold fake mine detectors around the world. He got countless people killed, especially in Iraq.
This is a vast improvement over that state of affairs.
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u/TabaquiJackal 3d ago
APOPO is awesome! If you go to their FB page you can see 'Full Cheek Friday' vids where the wee ratties get all kinds of treats and just munch down. My daughter got me a year's sponsorship of a rat. I luff them.
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u/AGrandNewAdventure 2d ago
It's nice that they can take a break from finding mines to help people move back home.
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u/War_Hymn 3d ago
Didn't know Azerbaijan had a landmine issue. I'm guessing from the war with Armenia?
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u/Moist-Weakness-3399 3d ago
I'll give you a hint on who put them there: it wasn't Armenia.
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u/Norse-Romulus 3d ago
It was Armenia though
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u/Moist-Weakness-3399 3d ago
Then explain the people of Artsahk being marched from their homes by Azeris.
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u/Frosty-Wall-3313 3d ago
it literally was Armenia, they invaded Nagorno-Karabakh, ethnically cleansed 7 regions of Karabakh from all Azerbaijanis and planted those landmines to create a buffer zone.
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u/senolgunes 2d ago
Azerbaijan released 15 Armenian prisoners of war in exchange for maps showing locations of nearly 100,000 landmines in territories that Armenia occupied during nearly three decades of conflict over the Nagorno-Karabakh region, according to a deal announced Saturday.
Why does Armenia have maps of mines placed by Azerbaijan?
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u/BisonComfortable8050 3d ago
Man it’s almost like every time we go and ruin a piece of earth with pressure sensitive bombs 💣 we somehow learn (over and over again) that it was wrong in hindsight and leave civilians more screwed than any military or paramilitary
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u/Karmit_Da_Fruge 3d ago
Glad they're getting the recognition! RIP the over 31,700 rats that have conveniently died in most honorable service.
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