Should dolphins be employed to help the military?

If Ecco the dolphin can do it, so can they

By: Zane Ecklund

Posted: 4/6/07

A big deal has been made about the United States Navy's plans to use dolphins as a swimming tool of defense. A Yahoo! News story dated March 28 chronicles the criticism of this practice. The dolphins in question are being used to guard the West Coast Trident Submarine Base at Hood Canal in Bangor, Wash.

These cetaceans are trained to detect intruders in the water around the base. When an intruder is sensed, the beasts alert their handlers, who affix strobe lights to their noses. The dolphins then swim back into the depths and bump the intruder, turning the light on and giving Navy security a sign showing them where to search for the intruder.

The argument against this tactic is that the waters being guarded are too cold for the poor little dolphins. Susan Scheirman, dolphin enthusiast from Bainbridge Island, Wash., mentioned in the article that the working conditions at Hood Canal were like a blizzard.

Dorian Houser, a Navy marine mammal physiologist, refutes this claim. Houser cites studies that show bottlenose dolphins are capable of handling extreme conditions and function well in temperatures as low as 40 degrees. The waters of Hood Canal rarely get that cold, and when the dolphins' work is done, they are returned to an enclosure filled with warm water.

The entire controversy begs the question: Should animals be used for military purposes? The answer should be a resounding "yes."

Animals have been used for military purposes for thousands of years. Horses have been used in cavalry since biblical times. Akbar the Great, the Mughal leader, used elephants during his military campaigns to (literally) crush his opposition. Elephants have also been used as recently as World War II in shipyards.

Other unorthodox examples also abound. Behaviorist B.F. Skinner attempted to condition a pigeon to guide a missile by pecking a screen, which coordinated the projectile's movements.

Before the atom bomb was implemented, bats were considered weapons. Project X-Ray was a development which had as its goal attaching tiny incendiary packets on bats and release them over Japanese cities and towns. The bats, looking for shelter, would roost in houses and their loads would detonate. The idea was that paper and wood were widely used building materials, so the incendiary devices would burn down structures. Ultimately, the atom bomb was employed, and these bat bombs were never used.

The use of dolphins has been documented in "A Brief History of the Navy's Marine Mammal Program," a publication released by the Navy Marine Mammal Program. Dolphins were first used in 1960, when Pacific white-sided dolphins' aerodynamics were studied in an effort to improve torpedo performance.

A 2003 article from NationalGeographic.com provides overwhelming evidence of a dolphin's tactical practicality. The article covers Navy-trained dolphins, which locate anti-ship mines in the Persian Gulf.

The reason dolphins are so effective at this is that their sonar abilities and incredible intelligence make them talented at finding objects underwater. The natural abilities surpass those of military equipment.

In the article, Whitlow Au, researcher of bioacoustics at University of Hawaii's Marine Mammal research Program, explained why dolphins are so effective at this particular task. "Dolphins have the best sonar on this planet…the Navy does not have any technological sonar that can find buried mines except for its dolphin system. They (dolphins) can not only find objects like mines that may or may not be buried into the seabed, but they can distinguish them from clutter such as coral rock and man-made debris."

Smithsonian Magazine, in September 2003, ran the article "Uncle Sam's Dolphins." The article contained a statement that the Navy's dolphins had detected more than 100 mines and booby traps from the port of Umm Qasr in the Persian Gulf. In addition, the Navy stated it had started a breeding program in 1999 and had not captured wild dolphins since.

A dolphin's place in history should amount to more than the Flipper television series, the Free Willy movie and the Ecco video game series. A dolphin's intelligence and sonar are tools we can use to keep those in the military safe from harm. The fact that they are animals does not mean they cannot be heroes.