The US navy has been training bottlenose dolphins to perform military tasks for more than 60 years.
To this day, the maritime service insists ‘technology is no match for the animals’, which are used mainly for locating mines and underwater surveillance.
The navy’s Marine Mammal Program was largely kept under wraps until the early nineties, when the project was declassified.
Dolphins are trained for the program in San Diego, and the project utilises around 70 of the razor-sharp mammals.
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Trained in a similar way to dogs, dolphins are taught new tasks through positive reinforcement with treats.
The military has put dolphins’ - which have the most sophisticated echolocation capabilities known to science - sonar to good use for decades now.
One of their roles is underwater surveillance, which sees the mammals strapped with cameras to scope out waters near military bases.
Dolphins would firstly notify their handler if they spotted someone swimming where they shouldn't be.
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A navy handler will then give the dolphin a tagging device before sending it back to the swimmer. Tracking the device, military personnel are able to apprehend the individual.
Since 2010, a group of dolphins have patrolled the harbour of the U.S. Naval Base Kitsap in Bangor, Washington, where around a quarter of the USA’s nuclear warheads are kept.
Navy dolphins also do a stellar job locating and tagging underwater mines. They’re basically trained to be able to spot objects that look like mines, and if they come across one, to return to their handler and touch a ball or disk with their nose.
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The handler will then give the dolphin an acoustic transponder or weighted buoy which the animal will take back to the mine and use to mark its location.
According to Smithsonian, more than 100 mines were located by a team of nine navy dolphins during the Iraq War in 2003.
On its website, Marine Mammal Program highlights why animals are still used in place of technology or humans.
A segment answering the question reads: “Both dolphins and sea lions have excellent low light vision and underwater directional hearing that allow them to detect and track undersea targets, even in dark or murky waters.
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“[Dolphins] can dive hundreds of feet below the surface, without risk of decompression sickness or ‘the bends’ like human divers.
“Someday it may be possible to complete these missions with underwater drones, but for now technology is no match for the animals.”
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Topics: US News, World News, Animals