For most of us, the sight of rats makes us squeal. But scientists from non-profit organisation APOPO in Tanzania are working on repairing the dirty rodent's reputation, by training them to aid in search and rescue efforts.
They aren't just any rats, and they're not just scavenging for food, they are African giant pouched rats
Behaviour research scientist Isabelle Szott is part of a non-profit organisation that's training them to search for earthquake survivors.
"All of our rats are trained using positive reinforcement training."
The rats are deployed into a mock disaster zone filled with debris.
"Once they locate the target human, the rat pulls a ball attached to its harness which triggers a microswitch that beeps."
When they hear a beep they know it's time to go back to base for their reward.
Ultimately, the rats will be trained to wear multifunctional backpacks enabling real-time, wireless audio-visual communication between rescue teams and survivors from within the debris.
"They've got a great sense of smell they're comparable to dogs, we're not looking to replace dogs."
Rather, compliment search dogs. Murray Bowden's search and rescue dog was pivotal during the 2016 Kaikoura earthquake.
"We're always interested to see what other ppl are doing and to see whether we can pick up any tips and tricks but no rats have never come into the thought process for us, we're very focused on our dogs."
Researchers aren't sure when the rats will be ready to be deployed, the toughest test they could face could be repairing the rodent's bad reputation.
They're probably the last thing you'd want to see if you were trapped and awaiting rescue.
"These are also things we are thinking about how can we create a better image for rats in general maybe with the two-way backpack we can broadcast the message with hi we're here to help you."
