Magawa is a 7 year old African Giant Pouched Rat, who has worked as a landmine detector for the past 5 years. In his 5 years career, Magawa has managed to sniff out 71 landmines and dozens more unexploded items in Cambodia.

Magawa has clearly earned his retirement and his handler, Malen, says he is “slowing down” as he reaches old age and she wants to “respect his needs”. Magawa was trained by a Belgium-registered charity, Apopo, which is based in Tanzania and has been raising the animals (known as HeroRATs) to detect landmines since the 1990s. The HeroRATs are certified “professionals” after one year of training.

At 1.2 kg and 70 cm in length, Magawa is able to walk over mines without triggering them. The rats are trained to detect a chemical compound within the explosives. Once they detect one, they scratch the top to alert their human colleagues. Amazingly, it only takes Magawa 20 minutes to search a field the size of a tennis court, something that would take a person with a metal detector between one and four days! 

Last September, Magawa was awarded the PDSA Gold Medal, which is described as the George Cross for animals, for his “life-saving devotion to duty.” Magawa is the first rat to be awarded this medal.

In Hong Kong, the main of “working” animal we have are dogs. The Customs and Excise department has 3 types of dogs: drug detectors, explosive detectors, and cash detectors. Interestingly enough, given the situation we are in with the pandemic, there are many studies going on in the world about whether dogs can sniff out COVID with the goal of these animals sniffing out COVID at places like airports and stadiums.

Courtesy of Michelle Cheung

Main Source: BBC, National Geographic, HK Customs