After five years of sniffing out land mines and unexploded ordnance in Cambodia, Magawa is retiring.
The African giant pouched rat has been the most successful rodent trained and overseen by a Belgian nonprofit, APOPO, to find land mines and alert his human handlers so the explosives can be safely removed. Last year, Magawa won a British charity’s top civilian award for animal bravery – an honour so far exclusively reserved for dogs.
“Although still in good health, he has reached a retirement age and is clearly starting to slow down,” APOPO said. “It is time.”
