Heroic animals: Magawa, the rat wins gold medal for bravery
Recommended for Preparatory Grades
Heroic animals
Magawa is an African giant pouched rat who lives in Cambodia. He has been awarded a gold medal for his bravery as a mine detector (finder).
Landmines (or mines) are bombs buried in the ground that burst if they are stepped on. They are extremely dangerous and need to be removed carefully with special training and equipment.
Cambodia has landmines in many places. They were buried when the country was having wars. So, Magawa’s work is to find the mines before they explode.
Magawa was awarded the gold medal for bravery by the British veterinary (animal) charity People’s Dispensary for Sick Animals (PDSA).
The PDSA Gold Medal is “the highest honour for outstanding animal bravery and exceptional dedication in civilian life”.
What do we know about Magawa?
He was trained by an organisation called APOPO (Anti-Persoonsmijnen Ontmijnende Product Ontwikkeling). APOPO trains rats like Magawa to find mines and point them out to their human handlers. They are known as ‘hero rats’.
As an African giant pouched rat, Magawa is larger than a normal pet rat. These rats are also intelligent and easy to train.
Magawa is lighter than a human. So, he can walk on the bombs without making them explode. He can find all the mines in an area the size of a tennis court, in 30 minutes. A human would take four days to do this. Over seven years, he has found 39 landmines and many other explosives.
Here is a video on other mine-detecting heroic animals like Magawa. Video credit: BBC earth/Youtube
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