His hard work paid off. Magawa the mine-sniffing rat gets to retire. For five years, the African giant pouched rat has sniffed out landmines in the country of Cambodia. Magawa has been the most successful rodent trained and overseen by a Belgian nonprofit company, APOPO. Now he gets to leave the rat race for retirement.

APOPA trained Magawa to alert human handlers so they can safely remove explosives from the ground. Last year, he won a British charity’s top civilian award for animal bravery. That was a huge honor for the rodent. It was formerly given only to dogs.

“Although still in good health, he has reached a retirement age and is clearly starting to slow down,” says APOPO. “It is time.”

Magawa accomplished a lot in his job as top mine-sniffing rat. He has cleared more than 1.5 million square feet of land. That’s the size of 20 soccer fields! He sniffed out 71 landmines and 38 items of unexploded military weapons. African giant pouched rats like Mawaga are best suited for the job because their size allows them to walk across mine fields without triggering the explosives. They can also zip across the fields much more quickly than people.

Magawa was born in Tanzania in 2014. He began his bomb-sniffing career in 2016. Lily Shallom is an APOPO spokeswoman. She explains that as a retired rat, Magawa will live in his same cage as before. He’ll have the same daily routine, without the dangerous job of scurrying across minefields. Magawa will have playtime every day and get regular exercise and health checks.

Ms. Shallom says the rat eats mostly fresh fruit and vegetables. He enjoys sun-dried fish for protein and pellets for vitamins and fiber. He spends 20-30 minutes each day playing in a larger cage that has a sandbox and a running wheel.