Magawa the hero rat: the landmine-sniffing rat who won a gold medal

Who was Magawa?

Magawa was a working rat with one very particular skill: he could smell explosives buried in the ground. He was bred and trained by APOPO, a charity that has trained rats to detect landmines in Tanzania since the early 1990s, according to PDSA. APOPO calls its working rats HeroRATs, and Magawa became the best known of them all.

He was born in Tanzania in November 2014 and trained at APOPO's centre on the campus of Sokoine University of Agriculture, APOPO says. In 2016 he moved to Siem Reap in north-west Cambodia to start work.

Was Magawa the same kind of rat as a pet rat?

No. Magawa was an African giant pouched rat, which PDSA describes as "so much larger than your average pet rat". The rats people keep as pets, often called fancy rats, are a different species altogether: the RSPCA explains that domestic rats are descended from the brown rat. So Magawa was a distant cousin of your pets, not a big version of them.

The lifespans differ too. The Associated Press reported that African giant pouched rats live up to eight years, while the RSPCA puts a pet rat's lifespan at around two to three years, sometimes longer. Our guide to how long rats live covers what to expect from yours.

Why were rats used to find landmines?

Because their noses are fast and they ignore everything that is not explosive. PDSA says a rat like Magawa could search an area the size of a tennis court in 30 minutes, a job that can take a person with a metal detector up to four days.

APOPO's chief executive, Christophe Cox, put it this way when Magawa won his medal: "APOPO's HeroRATs significantly speed up landmine detection using their amazing sense of smell and excellent memory." He added that, "Unlike metal detectors, the rats ignore scrap metal and only sniff out explosives." A metal detector beeps at every old nail and bottle top; a trained rat only stops for the real thing.

The need was huge. PDSA says an estimated four to six million mines were laid in Cambodia from the 1970s onwards, with around three million still unfound when Magawa was working.

How was Magawa trained?

With a clicker and food rewards. PDSA explains that the rats learn to link the smell of the explosive chemical with a click and a treat. When Magawa found that smell, he signalled to his handler. PDSA adds that he was light enough that he would never set off a landmine by walking over it. Magawa was field-ready in just nine months, according to both PDSA and APOPO.

This is exactly the kind of positive, reward-based training that works with pet rats too. If you would like to try it at home, our guide to how to train pet rats starts with three simple skills.

What did Magawa achieve?

More than any other HeroRAT before him. By the time of his award in September 2020, PDSA and APOPO said he had found 39 landmines and 28 items of unexploded ordnance, and had helped clear more than 141,000 square metres (about 1.5 million square feet) of land, roughly twenty football pitches. PDSA called him APOPO's most successful HeroRAT.

He kept working for another nine months. When he retired in June 2021, the Associated Press, citing APOPO, reported his final tally as 71 landmines and 38 items of unexploded ordnance. Reuters, reporting after his death, summed it up as more than 100 landmines and other explosives.

What is the PDSA Gold Medal?

It is the UK vet charity PDSA's highest award for animal bravery, which PDSA and APOPO both describe as the animal equivalent of the George Cross. Magawa received his on 25 September 2020 in a special virtual presentation from PDSA's Director General, Jan McLoughlin. CBS News reported that he was the 30th animal to win it and the first that was not a dog.

Jan McLoughlin said of him: "Every discovery he makes reduces the risk of injury or death for local people."

Magawa's life at a glance

What did Magawa do when he retired?

He took life easier. When he retired in June 2021, APOPO said that although he was still in good health he had "reached a retirement age and is clearly starting to slow down". He stayed in the same home cage and kept the same daily routine, the Associated Press reported, but no longer went out to the minefields. He still had daily playtime, regular exercise and health checks, including 20 to 30 minutes a day in a bigger cage with a sandbox and a running wheel.

He died in January 2022, aged 8. Reuters reported that APOPO said he had been in good health and "spent most of last week playing with his usual enthusiasm". APOPO's own words for him were simple: "A hero is laid to rest."

What does Magawa's story tell us about pet rats?

That rats are clever, keen and wonderful to train, whatever their size. The RSPCA describes pet rats as highly intelligent and sociable, with strong memories: they learn quickly, remember routes and people, and can be trained. Your rats share that brilliant nose and that love of a reward, even though they are a different species from Magawa.

You can give them a small taste of his working life at home:

• Scatter part of their daily food so they sniff it out rather than eat from a bowl.
• Wrap a treat in plain paper or hide it in a box of shredded paper for them to find.
• Teach a simple trick with a click or a word and a tiny reward, kept to a few minutes at a time.
• Keep at least two rats together: the RSPCA says rats should never be kept alone.