{"id":435499,"date":"2026-08-17T19:18:09","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T19:18:09","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/435499\/"},"modified":"2026-08-17T19:18:09","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T19:18:09","slug":"sacramento-zoo-to-welcome-3-african-giant-pouched-rats","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/435499\/","title":{"rendered":"Sacramento Zoo to welcome 3 African giant pouched rats"},"content":{"rendered":"

Sacramento Zoo to showcase giant African rats able to sniff out landmines, tuberculosis<\/p>\n

\"JonathanSACRAMENTO, Calif. \u2014<\/p>\n

Rodents may not be for everyone, but the Sacramento Zoo hopes to make a case for why its latest arrivals earned their affectionate nickname of “HeroRATS.” <\/p>\n

The African giant pouched rats, considered one of the world’s longest rodents, have an incredible sense of smell. They are known for being effectively trained to sniff out tuberculosis, landmines and trafficked wildlife products in parts of Africa and Asia.<\/p>\n

And the zoo is celebrating the unveiling of a new, interactive habitat featuring three of these giant pouched rats. The goal is to educate others on the issue of illegal wildlife trafficking and what’s being done globally to stop it.<\/p>\n

One of the new rats will be viewable in its new habitat on Thursday, located near the African cheetah habitat. Sacramento Zoo CEO Dan Simon will be there at 9:30 a.m. for the unveiling to speak about the zoo’s new partnership with the nonprofit organization APOPO<\/a>, which trains the giant pouched rats.<\/p>\n

“We’re so excited to bring these heroes and their critically important conservation message to zoo guests,” Animal Care Supervisor Jonelle Mason said in a news release.<\/p>\n

At 10:15 a.m., the zoo said there will also be a demonstration of the giant pouched rats in action at the zoo’s amphitheater. Eventually, there will be daily “HeroRAT” shows where they will work through a maze wall to detect a new scent.<\/p>\n

The first 500 guests this Thursday will receive a “HeroRAT” sticker, the zoo said.<\/p>\n

See more coverage of top California stories here<\/a> | Download our app<\/a> | Subscribe to our morning newsletter<\/a> | Find us on YouTube here and subscribe to our channel<\/a> | Make KCRA a preferred news source in Google<\/a> <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Sacramento Zoo to showcase giant African rats able to sniff out landmines, tuberculosis SACRAMENTO, Calif. \u2014 Rodents may…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":435500,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[172847,172838,69077,172840,7,172849,38018,172842,172839,134059,172845,172841,172843,172848,85933,121,123,122,3332,77857,172844,172846],"class_list":["post-435499","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-african-cheetah-habitat","tag-african-giant-pouched-rats","tag-amphitheater","tag-apopo","tag-california","tag-conservation-message","tag-dan-simon","tag-giant-african-rats","tag-herorats","tag-illegal-wildlife-trafficking","tag-interactive-habitat","tag-jonelle-mason","tag-landmines","tag-maze-wall","tag-rodents","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news","tag-sacramento-zoo","tag-tuberculosis","tag-wildlife-products","tag-zoo-unveiling"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435499","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=435499"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435499\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/435500"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435499"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=435499"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435499"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}