The navy's marine-mammal programme has become arguably one of the most controversial of the US military's Cold War research projects. At its peak in the 1980s they had more than 130 mammals in its ranks, including bottlenose dolphins and belugas. The military programme has long been the subject of criticism from animal welfarists.

The US Navy has used marine mammals since the Vietnam War, when due to their extraordinary capabilities and use of echolocation (acute underwater vision) and navigational skills were first employed to detect mines. The US Navy Marine Mammal Programme was established in 1959. Dolphins are particularly suited to the task because their exceptional biological sonar helps them to 'see' mines even in zero visibility.

More recently dolphins and sea lions have been used in the Persian Gulf to detect mines and enemy divers near the Iraqi port of Umm Qasr. Animal rights activists have condemned the US Navy for their use of trained marine mammals.

Mines crippled two US warships in the 1991 Gulf conflict, and America has been using the animals alongside its own divers to help secure Umm Qasr. Dolphins are trained to find mines on the sea floor and mark them with a floating buoy (see picture). They have proved more successful in carrying out the task than unmanned robotic mine sweepers.

Bottlenose dolphin leaps in the Arabian Gulf, showing off a camera tied to his pectoral fin

Part of the build-up to the latest Iraq conflict saw America using dolphins to sweep the Gulf for mines as long ago as January. But experts from the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS) have condemned the use of dolphins. They are very concerned that these dolphins could come to harm and this is not the appropriate use of a highly intelligent and social animal.

'In order to use dolphins in this way, the US Navy has to keep them in captivity, which has been proved to cause stress,' said WDCS captivity campaigner Cathy Williamson. 'On top of that, they suffer even worse stress when they are transported by air to the war zone (taken by helicopter in fleece-lined slings, partially submerged in water tanks), where they are pressed into dangerous service to look for mines. All in all, it's a bad deal for the dolphins, who have no choice in the matter.' Military dolphins are confined in captivity, which can cause them extreme mental and physical stress. This suffering has been revealed in dolphins kept in marine parks and dolphinariums through aggression, lower life expectancy and higher infant mortality than in the wild.

The animals get transported quite often and within quite short periods of time thousands of kilometres from one location to the other. This is a further threat to their survival. Little is known about the danger caused through the manoeuvres themselves, as most are undertaken under strictest confidentiality.

The US Navy is usually very secretive about its dolphin programme, but they decided to release these details as a supposedly 'jolly' war story. As it happens, it is likely to result in the killing of wild dolphins in the Gulf, which will now be seen as 'the enemy' by some local people.

The dolphins are from the US Navy's Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile Unit Three based in Coronado, California. Nine have been flown to the Gulf, with a number of trained sea lions from the Navy's Mammal Maritime Unit in San Diego. This is the first time any of Eodmu 3's animals have been used for mine clearance.

They are trained not to touch any mines they find, but to mark them with floats. The Navy says they face no "significant" risk. Major Andy Hopkinson, of the UK's Royal Logistic Corps, said: "The dolphins are basically like underwater sniffer dogs.

"The old port area was mined extensively during the Iran-Iraq war, and there's a fear that some of them may have sunk deep into the silt. "When we are bringing humanitarian aid ships in, or any vessels for that matter, we need to be 100% sure the berths and channels are safe."

The coalition says the dolphins will help to make the port safe for aid cargoes and for other vessels. The Navy says they are well cared for, and face little danger.

Meanwhile dolphins from the US Navy have been used in various parts of the world such as in the Baltic Sea, Alaska, Hawaii, Florida, the Persian Gulf, and Vietnam. It is believed that the animals are trained for special tasks; they are not any trained to perform all activities. The animals are deployed from ships and helicopters.

Eodmu 3's website says: "The Navy will continue to use these systems as long as they are more effective than existing hardware." The Navy has about 40 animals altogether, some trained to find mines, some to home in on objects like test torpedoes with acoustic pingers.

WDCS is campaigning to end the use of marine mammals for military purposes.

Source: Dive magazine, WDCS, BBC NEWS

History & background to the use of dolphins.

When the Cold War ended in the late 1980s, the programme faced its biggest threat: widespread defence spending cutbacks. Many of the animals were released into their natural habitat or relocated to civilian-run aquariums, such as Sea World.

Throughout the decades between the end of the Second World War and the fall of the Berlin Wall, the US navy held a technological edge that allowed it to dominate the world's oceans. Maintaining this meant constantly carrying out new research. In 1960 navy scientists noticed how effortlessly dolphins move through the water, and were determined to try to copy nature's unique hydrodynamic design. If they could discover how dolphins travel at such great speeds and for so long, they believed the same principles could be applied in designing torpedoes, ship hulls and missiles.

Equally interesting was the dolphin's sonar system, which helped to guide it accurately across the open ocean. With these mysteries unlocked, who knew what weapons they could create. Major success came in 1965, when the navy deployed a bottled-nosed dolphin named Tuffy to carry equipment to divers working 70m underwater. The breakthrough wasn't that Tuffy was smart enough to deliver the tools, but that for the first time one of the navy's marine mammals had worked in the open water without a leash to prevent it escaping.

This was the level of reliability the programme needed to move it into full gear. Throughout the next decade, the navy's marine-mammal force was expanded to include dolphins and whales, who were used to locate and mark underwater mines; the animals would deposit buoy lines near the mines so divers could defuse them.

The most secret programme was a team of dolphins, the Swimmer Defence Team, that would protect military installations against enemy divers. When the dolphins detected intruders, they would either vocally alert their navy handlers or tag a swimmer with a tracking device. A five-dolphin team was even sent to Vietnam in 1970 to guard the Harbour at Cam Ranh Bay. Full details of their efforts remain classified, but allegations were later made by animal-rights activists that the dolphins had been trained to kill with knives attached to their snouts or to carry hypodermic syringes and inject enemy divers with lethal drugs.

These days, the marine-mammal programme mainly comprises mine-hunting dolphins and the Swimmer Defence Team. In 1998 a team of the mine-hunting dolphins was sent to Newfoundland to take part in joint US-Canadian war games. Of the six Canadian belugas, only Muk and Ruby, who was captured in 1980, are still alive.

Muk is considered semi-retired from navy service but can be brought back to duty if necessary. She and Ruby are kept at Sea World in San Diego, where they swim among the fake icebergs in a climate-controlled environment. Both are to be bred.

Source: The Scotsman