During his career, Magawa helped clear nearly 225,000 square miles of land from mines.
Another hundred a Magawa hero rat that found a mine in Cambodia has died, the NGO that trained the rat said Tuesday.
Magawa, a savannah hamster imported from Tanzania, helped clear nearly 225,000 square miles of land, equivalent to 42 football fields, during his career.
Awarded a Gold Medal for his heroism, Magawa retired from a well-deserved retirement in July. He was eight years old when he died on the weekend.
The video accompanying the news was released after Magawa retired last summer.
Magawa was able to go through an area the size of a tennis court in half an hour. Using traditional metal detectors, the same would take four days.
The Belgian aid organization Apopo, which trained Magawa, taught the rat to smell the chemical compounds in explosives. As a reward, it got its favorite delicacies bananas and nuts.
Millions of mines were mined in Cambodia during the three – decade – long civil war that ended in 1998.
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