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March 20, 2007

Nefarious Porpoises: Military Marine Mammals

I think it was the summer before eighth grade when I decided to read all the books on the summer reading list. I plowed through the usual suspects like the One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest, To Kill a Mockingbird, Call of the Wild and White Fang (or as I like to call it, Call of the Wild in reverse), All Quiet on the Western Front, and The Catcher in the Rye. I've still got my meaningfully marked up versions of Brave New World and 1984.

Somehow I stumbled across a lesser known novel with a similar theme to the Manchurian Candidate. The book, by Robert Merle, was called Day of the Dolphin and it was about a scientist who had trained two dolphins to understand English. They had then been stolen and used for nefarious purposes to try to assassinate the President. The book was later made into a movie, starring George C. Scott. It had a good soundtrack.

Atlantic Bottlenose Dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) Captive, Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, CA

It sounds like something out of the X-Files but it has some basis in fact. While we may not have bridged the communication gap with dolphins completely, both the Americans and the Russians have had programs to train dolphins and other marine mammals like sea lions for military purposes in the Cold War era.

Since the late 1950s, the U.S. and other nations have experimented with using dolphins and other marine mammals, such as sea lions, for military purposes. Part of the interest stems from figuring out how these animals can swim so fast and dive so deep and perhaps borrow their secrets to build better submarines and ships. But military planners have also been interested in using the animals to undertake risky or difficult missions, such as underwater mine detection, retrieving objects from the ocean floor, or sea guard duty.

Dolphins have proved adept at such tasks. They are smart and relatively easy to train, and in its heyday, the Navy's dolphin program boasted more than 100 animals. They weren't used widely, but many did see service in the Vietnam War and the Persian Gulf War. More recently, several Navy dolphins helped find, mark, and clear mines from a key port during the war in Iraq.

In such operations, the animals use their sensitive sonar to spot the mines, then signal handlers in a nearby boat that they've found something by placing one of two special disks in the boat. "They don't miss anything," a Navy spokesman told reporters. "If a mine is there, they will find it. Nothing gets by them."

More At: Nature: Dolphins At War

While the Russian program supposedly closed about 15 years ago, the San Diego-based U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program is still in operation today and dolphins are actively used.

The US facility in San Diego has had a captive breeding program since the late 1980's, so they do not take dolphins from the wild or other zoos. The five marine mammal teams are made up of dolphins and sea lions. Each group is trained to do something very specific, like finding mines or finding areas without mines for troops to land on shore safely. The teams can be deployed with very little notice (like 3 days).

The Russians sold their dolphins to Iran back in 2000, when their trainer could no longer afford to care for them properly. Most of the dolphins had supposedly been trained to attack enemy divers, run kamikaze missions to place mines on ships, etc.

In total, 27 animals, including walruses, sea lions, seals, and a white beluga whale, were loaded with the dolphins into a Russian transport aircraft for the journey from Sevastopol, on the Crimean peninsula, in the Black Sea, to the Persian Gulf.

Three cormorants were also among the cargo.

...

Mr Zhurid remained vague on the role he and the animals would play, but he said: "I am prepared to go to Allah, or even to the devil, as long as my animals will be OK there."

More At: BBC News: Iran buys kamikaze dolphins

	The United States has denied any offensive training methods, just rescue and reconnaissance. However, one can see that it is certainly feasible that these dolphins could be taught such things.
Atlantic Bottlenose Dolphin (Tursiops truncatus) Captive, Six Flags Discovery Kingdom, CA

Some sources say US dolphins were fitted with toxic dart guns, whereas the Russian dolphins just had these big spears to poke divers with (no hands to fire weapons). There was also more recent story of a bunch of US military dolphins possibly getting loose during Hurricane Katrina but it has remained unsubstantiated. There was an oceanarium in New Orleans that was flooded and its dolphins escaped and some were later saved. I think most of the hubbub arose when the military insisted on examining the rescued dolphins, which led to speculation that they were looking for dolphins. At the time, the newspapers called these animals "Firing Flippers".

Now keep in mind, animals in warfare are not a new concept. Humans have used them from the almost the very beginning. Cavalry horses and elephants. War pigs to scare the elephants into trampling their own soldiers. Beasts of burden like mules and oxen to carry military supplies and equipment. Camels in the desert. Hawks and messenger pigeons carrying other gifts like missile homing beacons. Russian war dogs used as anti-tank measures. The list goes on and on. And it gets weirder and weirder. For example, why use burning arrows when you can set monkeys on fire?

...monkeys were used, in the beginning of the Southern Song Dynasty, in a battle between rebels of the Yanzhou province, and chinese imperial army led by Zhao Yu. The monkeys were used as live Incendiary device. The animals were clothed with straw, dipped in oil and set fire to. They were set loose into the enemy's camp, thus setting the tents on fire, and driving the whole camp into chaos.

More At: Wikipedia: Military Animals

Well, at least dolphins don't have to worry about being set on fire, just blown up, either purposefully or accidentally. I suppose for many people, they'd rather it was a dolphin than a military diver. I certainly understand that, but I also feel quite uncomfortable with that and I'm trying to pinpoint exactly why. Partly, the diver has free will and the dolphin doesn't, but also, the diver has some idea what the ramifications of his/her actions are, whereas the dolphin knows it will "get treat". I cannot really say I don't think the program to help clear mines and rescue people isn't a good one, but putting animals on the front line offensive is another matter entirely.

Unfortunately, since marine mammals are sometimes used for spying and reconnaissance, they are more likely to be under suspicion when they appear, whether they are on a mission, or just your average civilian critter, minding its own business. Some worry that nations will develop a practice like shooting dolphins, whether they are military or native, just to avoid the dangers of being spied on.

Lastly, porpoises are closely related to dolphins, but are in a different family (Phocoenidae). This hasn't stopped sailors from calling dolphins porpoises over the years, though. You can tell the difference because dolphins have cone-shaped teeth and porpoises have flatter teeth.

You can read more about dolphins on this blog:

Sonar Strandings & Dolphin Deaths

Saving Poster-Friendly Species: Perhaps More Strategic Than We Think

From Vampiric Spiders To Owl Engineering

Posted by sorsha at March 20, 2007 6:04 PM