- Photo From the HeroRAT Website
CNN World News posted a great HeroRAT article, including a dozen photos, on September 8, 2010. HeroRATs, as you may recall, are the giant pouched African rats used to sniff out land mines and tuberculosis. The title of the CNN piece is “Giant rats put noses to work on Africa’s land mine epidemic.”
Although the four-week-old rat (photo 1 in the CNN article) is really cute, I think my favorite picture shows a rat sniffing a tea-infuser ball (photo 8). How clever to put TNT in low-tech tea balls in order to teach the rats to sniff for the explosive.
For those of you who have not yet read my HeroRAT op-ed published by AOL News on August 17, be sure to check it out, particularly the link to the Parry Gripp “Hero Rats” video and song on YouTube.
Warm wishes,
Laurel Anne Hill (Author of “Heroes Arise”)
p.s. In case you wonder why I sometimes refer to HeroRATs and other times Hero Rats, let me explain. APOPO, the charity running the project, prefers HeroRAT/HeroRATs. However, people often refer to “Hero Rat” or “Hero Rats” in their articles.