As an ambassador for rats, it’s never easy to win over the public. There’s that hairless tail after all.
But Runa at the San Diego Zoo is doing her best to counter the bad press. She is one of a handful of such so-called ambassadors showing off the virtues of rats at three U.S. zoos. The rats were provided by a Tanzania-based organization that is training African giant pouched rats to combat wildlife trafficking, detect diseases and perform other useful tasks.
At least twice the size of the common brown rats found in cities, African giant pouched rats like Runa are best known for ferreting out landmines and other explosive material on old battlefields in Angola, Mozambique and Cambodia, earning them the nickname “hero-rats.” Efforts are underway to expand the use of their keen sense of smell to finding people trapped in collapsed buildings, detecting diseases in laboratory samples and alerting officials to illegal goods at ports and airports.
Six African rats completed their first trial working in the field in March, spending a month at a port in Tanzania where they were tasked with detecting smuggled goods, including Pangolins. The scaly anteater is coveted by poachers and is among the most trafficked animals in the world. Its meat is considered a delicacy in Vietnam and some parts of China, and its scales are used in traditional Chinese medicine.
Wildlife contraband is concealed among vast numbers of shipping containers that annually leave Dar es Salaam in Tanzania and other African ports.
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Runa initially was trained to find landmines, but she often got distracted on the job. She has been excelling, however, as an ambassador, said Cari Inserra, lead wildlife care specialist at the San Diego Zoo.
On a recent day, her trainers hid small vessels of chamomile tea under the dirt in a box. As soon as she was released from her cage, Runa’s tiny nose was abuzz with twitching as she set…
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