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Reconnaissance with a porpoise
By Emile Hallez
ehallez@mscd.edu

Pack your bags, Flipper. You’re going to Washington.

Up to 30 tactically trained dolphins and sea lions could soon be sent to patrol waters at Kitsap-Bangor, a naval base near Seattle, the Associated Press reported last week.

“The base is home to submarines, ships and laboratories and is potentially vulnerable to attack by terrorist swimmers and scuba divers,” the AP stated.

Unfortunately, the concept of reconnaissance dolphins is neither a joke nor anything new.
In the early ’60s, roughly 20 years after Aquaman surfaced, the Navy began summoning the power of sea beasts, using wit, sardines and a completely awesome decoder ring that, as legend has it, was found among bits of cheap, sugary corn flakes.

To get a glimpse of the U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program, pay a quick visit to its home page. In one corner, proudly adorned in a vintage crackerjack uniform, stands a sea lion with a score to settle. In the other stands an equally embittered dolphin, complete with opposable digits, a love for mom’s apple pie and a cute little hat. The sea lion stiffly holds the stars and stripes, which wave patriotically thanks to animation. The terrorists have nothing on this.

Personification of our oceanic allies reveals more than the Navy’s irreproachable taste in art. Standing erect with determination in their eyes, these watery comrades are dripping with free will. They not only serve their country, but they do so with unwavering love. They practically swam up to a naval recruiting office and signed, pens in fin, on the appropriate lines.

Presumably, these crude drawings indicate the intelligence possessed by naval pets. We should question the ethics, or lack of them, in exploiting these highly intelligent creatures, who are treated as disposable anti-terror commodities in place of capable Navy personnel.

The Navy denies ever using bottlenose dolphins and California seal lions for offensive missions. Rather, it asserts they are utilized for locating things: unauthorized swimmers, sea mines and objects such as explosives accidentally dropped on the sea floor. On command, the animals swim to the object or person in question, mark it with a beacon or “bite plate” attached to a towline and return “to the boat for a well-deserved reward of fish,” the program’s website states.

I’m reassured knowing the animals aren’t given any potentially dangerous tasks. Whew.
Sending animals on these missions is akin to sending young children into their parents’ closets to retrieve loaded guns. As long as the children aren’t taught how to use the triggers – and are promptly rewarded with well-deserved peanut butter and jelly – their safety is never compromised.

“The Navy hopes eventually to downsize its marine mammal program and replace the animals with machines,” the AP stated. If the Navy has any respect for sentient creatures, other than its sailors, it will validate this claim and will do so promptly. Somehow, though, I think we’ll see a robotic rear admiral before a synthetic sea lion.