Feel Good Friday - APOPO Revisited

Six years ago, I wrote a post about APOPO, not knowing that one day I’d have a chance to visit the APOPO Visitor Center in Siem Reap. That makes today a perfect time to revisit this organization.

Founded in 1997 and headquartered in Morogoro, Tanzania, the mission of APOPO is "to develop detection animals technology to provide solutions for global problems in developing countries." They do this by training African giant pouched rats and technical survey dogs, nicknamed HeroRATs and HeroDOGs, to detect landmines and tuberculosis using their extraordinary sense of smell. 

Cambodia remains one of the most landmine-contaminated countries in the world, with an estimated 4 to 6 million mines and unexploded ordnance still buried in the soil. Since beginning operations there in 2014, APOPO has destroyed 8,008 landmines, 43,932 items of unexploded ordnance, and returned more than 73 million square meters of safe land to local communities.

These results are made possible by the speed and accuracy of the HeroRATs. The rats can detect the scent of explosives and search an area the size of a tennis court in just 30 minutes, a task that can take a human deminer with a metal detector up to four days. Each rat undergoes about a year of intensive training before being deployed to real minefields. In December 2025, 20 mine detection rats completed accreditation in Cambodia, increasing the team's capacity. 

Beyond landmine detection, APOPO has expanded into new lifesaving applications. HeroRATs now detect tuberculosis in Tanzania, Ethiopia, and Mozambique, identify wildlife trafficking products at commercial ports, and they're developing search and rescue capabilities for disaster response. 

APOPO has had a big impact in the communities they serve. They’ve destroyed more than 170,000 landmines and explosives globally and returned over 132 million square meters of safe land to communities, freeing more than 2.5 million people from the threat of explosives.

You can support APOPO in many ways. Adopt a HeroRAT to sponsor their training and work, make a donation, shop for merchandise, or visit the Visitor Center in Siem Reap. You can also amplify their message on social media by following APOPO on Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn, or YouTube and share stories of these hero animals with your network.

Feel Good Friday - APOPO

Today's Feel Good Friday is all about the rats of APOPO (an inspiration I will neither confirm, nor deny, is based on something I saw in my neighborhood).

The work of APOPO, a Dutch acronym describing landmine detection, is summed up in their tagline: "we train rats to save lives".

Since the organization's founding in Belgium in 1997, APOPO has been training scent detection rats to detect landmines and tuberculosis. This 45-second video, made for their 20th anniversary, gives a quick overview of the programs.

This work is necessary because there are 61 countries in the world with hidden landmines that injure over 8,000 people each year and prevent communities from farming on productive land. Using metal detectors to find the landmines is a slow and dangerous process. Here's where the rats of APOPO come in.

Dubbed HeroRATs, the African giant pouched rats from Tanzania have a highly developed sense of smell, are easy to train and too light to detonate the landmines when walking over them. They're also fast! An area the size of a tennis court would take a human with a metal detector 4 days to clear. A HeroRAT can search the same area in 30 minutes! APOPO's landmine program is currently operating in Angola, Cambodia and Mozambique.

HeroRATs not focused on landmines are trained to detect tuberculosis. Each year there are 10 million new global cases of tuberculosis and 1.6 million people die from the disease. HeroRATs sniffing sputum samples are faster and more efficient than microscopy. HeroRATs can check 100 samples in 20 minutes vs. a human checking 25 samples per day. Samples identified as positive by the rats are verified by lab technicians. Watch a short video of how it works here.

Although it may seem unconventional, the results are impressive. Since they began over 20 years ago, APOPO has destroyed more than 106,000 landmines and the HeroRATs found over 12,000 TB-positive patients, improving clinic TB detection by 40%. To learn more, explore the website for stories of people who have been impacted by APOPO and read all the rat FAQs your heart desires.

If you'd like to support the work of APOPO you can make a traditional donation, adopt a HeroRAT, shop for merch or create your own volunteer position! Keep current on stories from the field by liking the APOPO Facebook page and following them on Twitter @HeroRATs