Wild Life Drawing Online: Hero Rats

Rats rarely score highly on the top favourite animal lists, but I'm about to tell you something that will change your mind.

Rats save lives, thousands of them. These particular rats I'm talking about are African giant pouched rats and are expertly trained in scent detection, making them very special indeed. Nicknamed hero rats, they are bred, trained and cared for by APOPO, a highly effective global charity that works with these rats to help rid the world of landmines and tuberculosis. 

Over 60 countries are contaminated with hidden landmines and other explosive remnants of war, that cause tragic accidents and hamper communities from developing their productive land. Meanwhile, slow and inaccurate detection methods make tuberculosis the world’s most deadly infectious disease. 10.8 million new people contracted TB in 2023, 2.7 million went undiagnosed, and 1.3 million died from the disease. APOPO deploy trained teams with scent detection animals to safely identify active mines across Cambodia, clearing areas as large as tennis courts in twenty minutes and returning safe land back to communities for development. And in the medical world, the hero rats have diagnosed more than 23,000 tuberculosis patients meaning they can access life-saving treatment, freeing people from serious illness so they can get back on their feet. 

Animal welfare is key at APOPO as every rat is considered a highly valuable asset! The specialist training is adapted to the rats personalities and they receive the very best diet, enrichment and plenty of love throughout their lives and into retirement.

We will be welcoming Emma Mortiboy, Public Fundraising Manager for APOPO who will be telling us all about the rats, and their positive impact around the world. We will be treated to a cameo from some African giant pouched rats care of UKPouchies’ Coral, who will be joining our class for a short while for some sketching from life. After that we will switch to reference images of the rats doing their incredible work, and drawing rodent royalty Magawa, who helped to clear over 100 landmines in Cambodia and has recently had a statue erected in his honour.

Jennie will be teaching you top tips on how to finesse your furry heroes, with guided tutorials, drawing exercise and a detailed look at rodent anatomy. This class is open to all ages and levels of ability, and I promise that even those people claiming to only be able to draw 'stick rats' will come away with an artwork to be proud of.  And we will be using our drawings to spread the word about how resplendent rats really are. 

All you’ll need to take part is some paper, a pencil, a sharpener and a rubber, but feel free to experiment with other materials if you’re feeling adventurous. We’ll email you an event link along with instructions, material options and reference images ahead of time. And as with all our online sessions, you’ll receive a recording of the class afterwards so you can watch it back whenever as many times as you like.

50% of profits will be donated to APOPO.