There has been land mine clearing operations going on since 1992. There was estimated to be between 4 to 6 million landmines and other unexploded ordinance buried in rural Cambodia.
So yesterday, we visited APOPO, a Dutch acronym that means Anti-Personnel Landmine Detection Product Development.
APOPO has been working in Cambodia since 2014, clearing landmines... using rats!
They have a visitors center here in Siem Reap, where they tell the story of what they do. It's fairly expensive, at $10 USD ($12.50 CAD) to get in and join the one hour tour, but of course all the funds raised goes towards helping clear landmines in Cambodia... so it's definitely a good cause.
Ruth, reading an information board.
They use giant African pouched rats that are trained over a nine month period to sniff out TNT. Their smell is so sensitive that they can recognize TNT that is buried 15 to 20 cm (8 inches) under ground, and from about a meter (3 feet) away.
Amazing!
Most mine clearing operations are done by metal detector. But the metal detectors also detect shrapnel that is left over from the American carpet bombing campaign, so it's very time consuming. The rats ignore the left over material, and can specifically pick out the unexploded stuff. A rat can search an area the size of a tennis court in about 30 minutes, compared to a manual deminer with a metal detector that can take 4 days depending on how much scrap metal they come across. Also, the rats can detect both plastic and metal land mines.
Our guide explaining about land mines and rats.
One of the handlers brought out Zefanina the rat.
Zefanina the rat is five years old and weighs 1.5 kilos (3.5 lbs). He has been clearing land mines for about three years.
They showed us how Zefanina works. They buried a small vial of TNT, and they lay out a grid for the rat to search with a person on each end, and the rat attached to a harness and line. The rat goes up and down the line, sniffing for the TNT. When it scratches at the ground, it is marking the spot. Then, it runs over to the handler for a treat. The treats are only used for training. When the rats are actually working in the field, they don't get treats.
I took a video for you...
The rats are actually trained in Tanzania, Africa. They undergo between 9 to 12 months of training.
Fortunately, no rats have been injured or killed in the minefield to date. Because they only weigh a maximum of 1.5 kilos, they are well below the necessary 5 kilo weight needed to set off a land mine.
And of course we got to meet one of the rats.
This is Valerie.
Valerie is a female, 4 years old and 1.2 kilos.
Valerie jumped up onto Ruth's shoulder.
Ruth has never had a rat on her shoulder!
Ha... too funny.
Our guide went through some of their statistics.
When they started work here in 2014, they had a goal to have Cambodia landmine free by 2025. He says they aren't going to meet that goal, but they are "close".
In 2023, the rats cleared over 13 million square meters of land. There were 43 rats working during the year. They expect another shipment to increase that number early next month.
Some of the stuff the rats have found.
So that was both fun and interesting. Highly recommend a visit to APOPO in Siem Reap.
We went for a walk around town...
Bridge over the Siem Reap River
Lotus flowers.
So bright and pretty!
Not sure why these trees are wrapped.
Hmm. No idea!
Funny planter.
In the evening, we met fellow Canadians Susan and Blair at the fancy Park Hyatt Hotel for discounted happy hour drinks and their dance show. When we had visited the hotel the day before, they had said that you don't have to be a guest of the hotel to enjoy the show.
Nice setting at the fancy Park Hyatt.
I took another video for you... turn up your volume...
We are up early this morning for a day trip into the fabulous Angkor Wat Temple Complex.
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Wow, fascinating about the rats and land mines. Thank you for the education!
ReplyDeleteWe found APOPO' visitor center to be really interesting and despite them being rats, they really were cute and quite big too. We think the work they are doing is very impressive and Cambodia can certainly use this help.
DeleteWhat a cool tour. Cleaning up a real mess that was left behind. A good movie about the Khmer Rouge "First They Killed My Father". We saw it on Netflix.
ReplyDeleteThey definitely had a real mess to clean up, thankfully these intelligent animals have made the task a little easier and quicker. It really is amazing to see them at work. We will check out that movie if Kevin is able to find it on the internet thanks.
DeleteRuth i always knew you as the dog whisperer....... but it seems you can add Rat Whisperer to the list
ReplyDeleteYou may think of me as a dog whisperer but I wasn't very successful at it in Thailand, there are a lot of dogs there that are not friendly at all! Valerie on the other hand was a real sweetheart but I don't think I could do that with just any rat, lol. :-)
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