Now for a truly stranger than fiction charity- the African Hero Rat.
This is a giant African pouched rat. They are crazy smart, have keen senses of smell, live to be quite old (by rat standards) and weigh only a couple pounds. This all adds up to make them the perfect landmine detectors!
Every year landmines kill 15,000 to 20,000 people, most of them children, women and the elderly. Scattered about 78 countries and still in frequent use, they remain dangerous for many many years after first planted. It is estimated that 110 million landmines have been spread through the world since world war II. Long after conflicts these mines remain behind, and can cost between $300 and $1000 per mine to remove- until the hero rats arrived!
Easily trainable (thanks to their love of bananas) they can sniff out landmines without ever setting one off. They can clear 200 hundred square meters in just 20 minutes, an area that would take humans with metal detectors 5 days to cover! And because they are so light no rat has ever been killed while working in the field.
This is a giant African pouched rat. They are crazy smart, have keen senses of smell, live to be quite old (by rat standards) and weigh only a couple pounds. This all adds up to make them the perfect landmine detectors!
Every year landmines kill 15,000 to 20,000 people, most of them children, women and the elderly. Scattered about 78 countries and still in frequent use, they remain dangerous for many many years after first planted. It is estimated that 110 million landmines have been spread through the world since world war II. Long after conflicts these mines remain behind, and can cost between $300 and $1000 per mine to remove- until the hero rats arrived!
Easily trainable (thanks to their love of bananas) they can sniff out landmines without ever setting one off. They can clear 200 hundred square meters in just 20 minutes, an area that would take humans with metal detectors 5 days to cover! And because they are so light no rat has ever been killed while working in the field.
Resting after an important day of clearing landmines :)
Apopo is an organization that has done an absolutely incredible job of training these little guys and treating them like the heros they are. The hero rats always share kennels with their siblings, they have several outside pens where they can play and be outside and their pens are created to simulate a natural environment with lots of dirt to create tunnels. They work for 6 years and then get to retire and eat all the bananas they want for the remaining few years of their lives.
AND as if that isn't enough- it has been discovered that the rats can actually smell and diagnose tuberculosis! They can evaluate in ten minutes more samples than a lab technician can do in an entire day.
I chose to give a one time donation, but you can choose to "adopt" a rat which comes with the honor of giving your rat a name! Adoption only costs $7 a month.
The Rundown
I donated $10
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