{"id":435701,"date":"2026-08-17T23:42:51","date_gmt":"2026-08-17T23:42:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/435701\/"},"modified":"2026-08-17T23:42:51","modified_gmt":"2026-08-17T23:42:51","slug":"sacramento-zoo-welcomes-3-herorats-unveils-interactive-habitat","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/435701\/","title":{"rendered":"Sacramento Zoo welcomes 3 HeroRATs, unveils interactive habitat"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">(FOX40.COM) \u2014\u00a0The Sacramento Zoo announced the arrival of three HeroRATs, also known as African giant pouched rats.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">African giant pouched rats are a special species of rodent trained by the non-profit organization APOPO to sniff out tuberculosis, landmines and trafficked wildlife products in parts of Africa and Asia.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Guests can see one of the new HeroRATs on Thursday starting at 9:30 a.m. in its brand-new habitat featuring an interactive play structure near the African cheetah habitat.<\/p>\n<p><img alt=\"(IMAGE: Sacramento Zoo)\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"410\" height=\"512\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/ktxl_articles_604\/4ee6535dacc46047f8c5750684b9d4c7.jpg\"\/><img alt=\"(IMAGE: Sacramento Zoo)\" loading=\"lazy\" width=\"741\" height=\"510\" decoding=\"async\" data-nimg=\"1\" class=\"rounded-lg\" style=\"color:transparent\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/08\/https:\/\/media.zenfs.com\/en\/ktxl_articles_604\/738b29ad9f2b98c5d0d1263ec8fbb42f.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Sacramento Zoo CEO Dan Simon will unveil the habitat and speak about the new partnership with APOPO.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The Sacramento Zoo&#8217;s ambassador animals team will then demonstrate the HeroRATs&#8217; abilities in the zoo&#8217;s amphitheater at around 10:15 a.m.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;This demonstration is training for eventual daily HeroRAT shows in the amphitheater that will show our rats work through a maze wall to detect a new scent,&#8221; a spokesperson with the zoo said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">The rodents will work alongside the Zoo&#8217;s Education Program to teach the public about the issue of illegal wildlife trafficking and efforts to stop it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;We&#8217;re so excited to bring these heroes and their critically important conservation message to zoo guests,&#8221; Jonelle Mason, Animal Care Supervisor.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">According to officials, the first 500 guests will receive a free, exclusive HeroRAT sticker.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">&#8220;HeroRATs are solitary in nature, and the three rats will rotate between a public habitat and two behind-the-scenes habitats with our other ambassador animals,&#8221; officials said.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\">Copyright 2026 Nexstar Media, Inc. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten, or redistributed.<\/p>\n<p class=\"mb-4 text-lg md:leading-8 break-words\"><a data-ylk=\"slk:For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX40 News.;elm:context_link;itc:0;sec:content-canvas;\" data-yga=\"{&quot;yLinkElement&quot;:&quot;link&quot;,&quot;yLinkElementType&quot;:&quot;article_link&quot;}\" href=\"https:\/\/fox40.com\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" target=\"_blank\">For the latest news, weather, sports, and streaming video, head to FOX40 News.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"(FOX40.COM) \u2014\u00a0The Sacramento Zoo announced the arrival of three HeroRATs, also known as African giant pouched rats. African&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":435702,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[172838,172839,121,123,122,3332],"class_list":["post-435701","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-sacramento","tag-african-giant-pouched-rats","tag-herorats","tag-sacramento","tag-sacramento-headlines","tag-sacramento-news","tag-sacramento-zoo"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435701","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=435701"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/435701\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/435702"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=435701"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=435701"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=435701"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}