Magawa the African giant pouched rat cleared the equivalent of 20 soccer fields in Cambodia during his five-year career.
PHNOM PENH, Cambodia — After five years of sniffing out land mines and unexploded ordnance in Cambodia, Magawa is retiring.
Magawa has cleared more than 141,000 square meters of land, the equivalent of some 20 soccer fields, sniffing out 71 land mines and 38 items of unexploded ordnance, according to APOPO. “Although still in good health, he has reached a retirement age and is clearly starting to slow down,” APOPO said. “It is time.”
Magawa is part of a cohort of rats bred for this purpose. He was born in Tanzania in 2014, and in 2016, moved to Cambodia’s northwestern city of Siem Reap, home of the famed Angkor temples, to begin his bomb-sniffing career.
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