The clever rodents who are ratting out cruel smugglers to help fight the war on wildlife crimes

Rats are dismissed as vermin and blamed for being transmitters of diseases such as the bubonic plague.

They also terrify many people and are incorrectly thought of as being dirty. But in East Africa, their intelligence has been valued after a border force of eight giant pouched rats has been trained to fight the multimillion pound

Wearing tiny uniforms and rewarded with mashed avocado and nuts, it is hoped the new recruits will be able to sniff out the most commonly smuggled animal and plant parts - including pangolin scales, horns, elephant tusks and hardwood - in a new attempt to save endangered species.

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The hero rats, given names including Attenborough and Fossey after the famous conservationists, were studied by scientists at Apopo, a Tanzania-based NGO, whose rodents also sniff out landmines and tuberculosis.

In trials, the rodents were dressed in tiny red vests attached to leashes, with a beeper on the front so they could use handlers when they found contraband. They would then receive a reward of food. They have proved to be as capable as any detection dog, according to research published yesterday in Frontiers in Conservation Science.

But being small enough to squeeze into tightly packed shipping containers has given them an advantage over their canine colleagues. Interpol says the market for illegal wildlife products is worth up to £15.5bn annually. More than 4,000 species around the are targeted by wildlife traffickers to meet the demand for remedies, exotic pets, bushmeat, ornamental plants and trophies. Much of it is driven by Asia's demand for ivory, scales and horns.

Project leader Dr Isabelle Szott said, "In just three years, our rats have progressed from working only in laboratory settings to detecting wildlife across four methods and environments.

"This highlights their versatility and the skill and dedication of our trainers and researchers."

More projects like this are desperately needed. At this critical time for the planet's health, I joined the Uganda Wildlife Authority on the front line of fighting the poachers.

I found piled high in a mountain of pain, the poachers' traps laid to kill wildlife. More than 35,000 snares, wires and spears have been confiscated from just one African wildlife park - more per square mile than anywhere else in the world - in just four years.

Since 2018 they have arrested 1,700 suspects. Some have been from poor villages near the park - people looking for antelopes, buffalo or warthogs to feed their families. But when elephants, giraffes and other animals also stumble into these cheap but effective traps, the tightening nooses kill by starvation, dehydration or blood loss.

More sinisterly, others are paid by a complex net of international criminals who slaughter elephants and hippos for ivory and lions for their bones. The obscene haul is smuggled to the Far East for traditional Asian medicines.

In the room of death, I saw one sickening leg trap with the remains of a hoof still attached.

Murchison Falls is Uganda's largest national park. Within it 168 hippos, 27 elephants, 36 giraffes and five lions have been killed since 2018. Haruna Kulu Kirya, a warden there for 28 years, said the sheer volume of confiscated traps show how far poachers will go.