Sniffer-dogs? Nah, sniffer-rats! That’s right; rats have been trained to sniff out landmines.
Staff at Porfell Wildlife Park and Sanctuary in Cornwall has taught a Gambian poached rat called Kofi to alert handlers when he detects a mine.
The rat… sorry, Kofi is too small to set off any landmines, but his sense of smell can pick up the scent of the bomb casing.
Kofi isn’t the first rat though, well, he’s the first in the UK, but Africa beat us to it.
They plan to use sniffer-rats to help the Army not get themselves blown up as much, and rats are more reliable than sniffer-dogs, because they weigh less therefore having less chance of setting off the explosive.
They are trained from a young age and are taken through many different stages to get to be profession bomb sniffers, they would be a great help for the police to help them with terrorist attacks.
Rats seem to be more intelligent than I ever thought, if they can save peoples’ lives, then I say get them all on leads!
A downside of rats though is their vision is very poor and they only see in black and white, which could be a problem when they off their leads.
Although I’m sure it’ll not be long before somebody will invent some gadget that will give rats supervision!
