After the devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria on Monday—with more than 19,000 deaths as of the morning of February 9—rescuers have been racing to find survivors in the rubble of collapsed buildings. At some sites, search and rescue dogs are aiding the effort. But future disasters might also get help from an unlikely source: rats that are currently training to work in earthquakes’ aftermath.
“They can go deep into the rubble, and penetrate where dogs may not be able to go,” says Sander Verdiesen, an electrical engineer working with Apopo, the nonprofit training the rats. The organization has been working with rats for more than a decade to detect land mines in Africa, relying on the rats’ extraordinary sense of smell. Several years ago, GEA, a Turkish humanitarian organization, reached out to the group to propose training the rats to also work on search and rescue missions.
As they train for future disasters, the rats wear a backpack with a tiny camera, […]
Amazing, since these animals are so small, they can get into places where dogs cannot.
I remember reading about dogs who did this kind of work, but their trainers said they suffered from depression afterward. Esp. when they found someone who couldn’t saved.