The newest batch of sentries at Naval Base Kitsap–Bangor will not have to wear uniforms. But they won’t get to clock out for breaks—and they will be paid in fish.
The base near Washington’s Puget Sound is slated to receive up to 20 Navy-trained bottlenose dolphins and California sea lions to patrol the shoreline around the submarine base as part of a bolstered security initiative started after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
Scientific American (thanks, Berber)
And what happens when they dont need the naval base any more – fuck off guys your fired find your own food now please. I hope they do what they did when The Navy trained them to carry bombs – run or swim off. Stooooooooooooopid Humans
i cant find any documentation that they ever carried bombs…just detected them:
http://www.spawar.navy.mil/sandiego/technology/mammals/mine_hunting.html
Amazing that they will stay in that area although a few probably do wander off now and then (?)
Good to hear that they are normally not injured or killed when performing.
But how can they alert their handlers in time? Where are those handlers located and how can the dolphins keep track of the swimmers/divers (as those will move ofcourse)? They probably will have to search. I wonder how they know where they are in the sea (dolphins), as there are no signs or marks or such.
So the handlers are nearby, or do the dolphins wear sort of a tracking device … It’s a bit vague. And how did they train them. The people that played to be the terrorists must have treated them less nice (as the dolphins might have wanted to approach them too) or are the dolphins tied to one person only? Hm .
Dolphins are very intelligent mammals & will probably do a good job. I just hope all of them are well looked after when their ‘work’ here is done.
LC x
I hope they remember that dolphins usually take a holiday of a week once a year. I’m not making it up, they have observed this in Scotland where a particular pod of doplhins simply relocate to somewhere different for a week before going back to their usual rounds, the only realistic explanation being some sort of holiday.
Something tells me this isn’t good news for them. I’ve heard quite a bit (sister doing marine mammal zoology) about the Navy testing weapons and it affecting wild marine mammals resulting in them stranding themselves, dying in mass etc. and that’s just by accident. This sounds like a wonderful way to start off the endangerment of a species…Stupid humans indeed.
If they’re wise they’ll just fuck off Hitchhikers Guide to the Galaxy style. Better that than like that episode of the Simpsons…
@Ladyclair Hi Clair here you go – this is one of many sources of info about it. The US Government have been accused of doing the same sort of thing with a limpet mine attached – the dolphin swims up and click the magnetic mine on the hull then swims off – boom. There was a film about it once forget the name. Also there were I believe Alsation dogs trained by the German army to run under tanks during WW2 with bombs attached to them, to lay down when they got to the tank then they were blown up. Sceptics say it would never happen because of the waste of money and time to train then only to kill them. I point you to the Russian Space programme and point out the dogs that were used in that – never to return.
here is one dolphin source
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/russian-navy-lets-slip-its-kamikaze-dolphins-of-war-740248.h
the link i gave above should finish 740248.html – doh ran out of letters I was rambling so much lol
@Storm – It’s so awful though. Humans have a choice (usually), animals don’t. Thanks for the reading info, most interesting.
LC x