KALAMAZOO (WKZO-AM) — Western Michigan University psychology professor Alan Poling has received the highest honor given by the American Psychological Association — their International Humanitarian Award.
He won it in a most unusual way.
He trains rats to help save people.
These aren’t your New York City sewer rats. He trains African pouched rats that have very special abilities.
They can find buried landmines and they can also detect tuberculosis in laboratory samples.
It wasn’t his original idea, but the Belgian organization he works with says he has taken the idea and turned it into a practical application.
Poling said the rats are light enough to detect the landmines without setting them off, usually.
He says they are healthy, easy to train, can climb and dig and are cost-effective where they are most needed, in war-torn third world countries, where landmines and tuberculosis are still threats.
He says they have been dubbed “Herorats,” and its fairly obvious why.
