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    Rat-ionalise opinions about muroids

    Synopsis

    Magawa’s heroic landmine-clearing career calls for a rethink about rats.

    Untitled-4AFP
    Six-year-old Magawa, an African giant pouched rat, has been awarded a gold medal by the UK veterinary charity PDSA for his four-year stint detecting 39 hidden landmines and 28 pieces of unexploded ordnance in Cambodia.
    Clearly, rats have got a bad deal both in popular imagination and the English language. While its cuter relative, the mouse, has been elevated to a technoc-rat thanks to the advent of the computer, a rat, however, is usually regarded as vermin. Praise, if any, is gratuitous. So, it is very heartening, indeed, to note that a colossus of the species, an African giant pouched rat, six-year-old Magawa, has been awarded a gold medal by the UK veterinary charity PDSA for his four-year stint detecting 39 hidden landmines and 28 pieces of unexploded ordnance in Cambodia. While Magawa himself is reportedly happy to be rewarded with just a basket of bananas, what makes the gold medal particularly gratifying is that he is the only rat to be selected by PDSA — all previous 29 winners have been dogs.

    The award is a significant recognition for ratkind given the bad press that Magawa’s smaller cousins attract. Studies and irate stories abound about rats taking over city streets from Toronto to Tokyo since the start of the pandemic.

    HeroRats may sound oxymoronic but that’s what Magawa and his mates are called by the Tanzania-based NGO named Apopo that has been training rats to detect landmines and tuberculosis for decades. Given their admirable work, it is time the world rat-ionalises its opinions about them.

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