Sniffer rats may soon be used to detect smuggled wildlife trophies
Nairobi — Africa’s giant rats have been trained to sniff out landmines and detect tuberculosis in humans, and soon they could turn their superior noses to protecting other animals by finding illegal wildlife trophies being smuggled out of African ports. The US-financed project is still in its early stages. The rats which will be trained to scuttle over shipping containers in search of pangolin scales were only born in October. But the aim is to prove by late 2017 that their powerful sense of smell can distinguish the illegally traded items even if they are stashed in coffee or other scent-masking substances in containers before they are loaded onto ships for export. "I firmly believe that we are going to be able to prove that they can," said Kirsty Brebner, whose organisation Endangered Wildlife Trust had the idea of putting rats to work on the illegal wildlife trade. "They are clearly trainable, they clearly have a strong sense of smell," Brebner told Reuters. She said the eventual...
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