Rats are heroes in sniffing out landmines in Africa

A Western Michigan University professor of psychology, Dr. Alan D. Poling, is part of a team training African pouched rats to locate landmines and sniff out people with tuberculosis. They call them HeroRats.

Training starts when the rats are young. In the beginning they are handled so they get used to being around people. They learn to walk in the harness they must use to explore areas where landmines are suspected. 

The rats’ highly sensitive and accurate sense of smell can identify the presence of both metal and plastic-cased landmines. Another advantage, Poling says, is rats can clear landmines for about $1.25 per square meter (roughly a square yard), well below the $2-to-$2.50-rate typical of most clearance efforts. And the rats are not large enough to set off the mines when they find them.

Poling works with a team of specialists from the non-governmental organization APOPO. He was asked to be part of the team for his expertise in dealing with the animals as the project was not initiated by scientists.

“On the one hand, I thought their work was innovative and interesting,” Poling says. “On the other hand, I thought it was kind of counterintuitive — rats don’t come immediately to mind when one thinks of diagnosing diseases.”

A psychopharmacologist and behavior analyst, Poling joined APOPO and the HeroRat team in August 2009 to increase its research capacity, improve the scientific rigor of that research and further streamline rat-training processes.

He’s also been called on to speak to the media about the work, making appearances on “CBS News” and “Voice of America.”

APOPO, headquartered in Tanzania, was founded by Belgian Bart Weetjens in the mid-1990s in response to the global landmine problem. The organization reports 1.3 million square meters of land has been searched and declared safe thanks to the organization’s work.

The rats appear to be equally successful when it comes to identifying people with TB.

“Microscopy misses 60 to 70 percent of active infections and is slow — a technician can only do 30 to 40 smears per day,” Poling says. “Cultures allow for accurate detection, but take six weeks to grow. Rats can analyze hundreds of samples in a day, and we’re reasonably sure that they’re as accurate as microscopy, and probably substantially more accurate. The next step is to study how rats do compared to culturing.”

Writer: Kathy Jennings
Source: Alan D. Poling, Western Michigan University