Good rats!
Rats have always been a threat to agriculture. They cause huge crop losses. They also damage infrastructure, contaminate foods and cause diseases. Millions of dollars are used every year to control and get rid of rats all over the world.
Meanwhile rats are being used for detecting land mines in Cambodia. A special breed of rat has been trained by experts to recognise the smell of TNT. The trainers guide the trained rats to detect the mines by smelling the object. As the rats are light in weight, the risk of the landmines being exploded is almost zero. These trained rodents can detect a landmine in only 11 minutes which would have taken about 10 days with metal detectors. An incredible work indeed!
Professor M Zahidul Haque
Department of Agricultural Extension & Information System
SAU, Dhaka
