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Marine Mammals Used To Fight Terrorism
pinkstuff writes "The Navy unveiled its terror-fighting marine mammals at a two-day homeland security and disaster preparedness exercise in California this week. From the article: 'A Navy seal — actually a sea lion — took less than a minute to find a fake mine under a pier near San Francisco's AT&T Park. A dolphin quickly located a terrorist lurking in the black water before another sea lion, using a device carried in its mouth, cuffed the pretend saboteur's ankle so authorities could reel him in.' Queue the 'frickin lasers' jokes."
*This* is why we environmentalists want to protect marine life. It kicks ass.
You could be training them or more sinister proposes...heh, yeah that was bad. And by bad I mean AWESOME.
This is a great movie:
http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0069946/
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It's the Iranian Kamakaze Dolphins you have to worry about!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/middle_east/670551.stm
Cue as in the stage signal. Not the waiting line (or data structure named after it). Otherwise, does anyone else get reminded of Jones from Johnny Mnemonic when they read these articles?
Actually the Navy has been doing this for years. Harbor patrol using seals and dolphins has been around for a while. When I was in the Navy in 93' I wrote an article about it (Yep there are journalists in the military). I was unable to run the story though because they were afraid people might jump to conclusions and think they were strapping bombs to marine animals. The facilities for training the marine animals in San Diego ranked right up with SeaWorld (if not better).
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The Day of the Dolphin Now git off my lawn or patch of seaweed or what ever is appropriate for you to git off
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Surely you mean dolphins with frick'n lasers?
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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JE9neghRfEs at 5:05 was thinking ahead.
It is also a good counter to the Soviet Squids.
Do not forget the Chronosphere and Weather Control Station
No way, the dolphins have sonar weapons to fight off the giant squid.
Marine mammals used to fight terrorism? Why did they stop?
marine mammals used to fight terrorism
Sadly, they've moved on to more interesting projects.
So what made the marine mammals stop fighting terrorism? Did bin Laden give them an offer they couldn't refuse?
Shouldn't TSA be given this detection technology to, ya know, help 'em out a little?
I love it when my 'frickin lasers' jokes are in nice, orderly lines... ;)
This is a truly novel approach, but what kind of sophisticated aqua-terrorists are we genuinely preparing to encounter?
9/11 was civilian aircraft, Oklahoma City was a Rider truck, and the attack on the USS Cole was a rubber raft.
Color me stupid, but it seems that stealthy and/or sophisticated attacks are absolutely not the point of terrorism. They don't seem to be trying to show that they are worthy James Bond villains, but rather that an attack could materialize out of the simplest and most common things.
But nice job with the seals and dolphins. Good luck with the sharks and the lasers.
No, he meant to type porpoises.
Paleotechnologist and connoisseur of pretty shiny things.
Marine mammals used to fight terrorism. Now they don't any more, huh. What, the younger generation has gone over to the dark side, or have they just zoned out and now spend their time surfing the web???
(shark instanceof Mammal) == false
Apparently it's sharks with frick'n lasers, and dolphins with frick'n handcuffs.
Who knew?
By the way, it might seems like sharks + lasers is scarier than dolphins + handcuffs, but just wait until they decide that cuffing random swimmers is hilarious.
The enemies of Democracy are
Well, I was in the navy and it was a semi-regular occurrence of seeing them use Sea Lions for mine detection. So this has been around for years. My guess is this is the first non-military use of them.
It's worth pointing out that, despite the anti-terrorism/Homeland Security spin currently in fashion, the Navy has been working on using marine mammals for underwater security since at least the 1960's, with preliminary work going back into the 50's.
The general idea is that it's rough and dangerous to send people into the water, E.G. to inspect the hull of a submarine moored in the 50 degree water of the Hood Canal, so it's better to use animals evolved to survive in that environment. Trained animals can also provide 24/7 coverage with greater detail over a larger area than humans can.
Which is exactly why it was bad. :)
When did they stop?
Did they develop drysuits or missiles or what? ;)
Any sufficiently advanced intelligence is indistinguishable from stupidity.
By the way, it might seems like sharks + lasers is scarier than dolphins + handcuffs, but just wait until they decide that cuffing random swimmers is hilarious.
... or one dolphin that is into bondage slips through the screening.
Mankind's been using animals to provide warnings, attack and/or restrain intruders and root out evil for quite some time.
Corollary to Hanlon's razor: Any significantly advanced stupidity is indistinguishable from malice.
When used that way, it's "cue" not "queue." Malapropisms are interesting from a demographic standpoint. I bet other, correct, uses of "queue" more often get spelled as cue by non-technical people, and correct uses of "cue" get morphed into "queue" by techies.
Ah reminds me of Red Alert 2
Kosh: "Understanding is a 3 edged sword, your side, their side, the Truth."
/me Slaps Terrorists around with a Fish
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First they ignore you. Then they laugh at you. Then they fight you. Then you win. -Gandhi
http://forums.worldofwarcraft.com/thread.html?topicId=13275700466&sid=1
Marine Mammals *used* to fight terrorism, but now all they do is swim around and eat fish and stuff! Explains the increase in attacks.
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Has the fish?!?
Weaselmancer
rediculous.
The US Navy Marine Mammal Program has been in place for fifty years now and predates the "war on terrorism." It used to be heavily classified but its a lot more open than it used to be. The short summary of its mission:
1) The Navy claims they have never used the program in an attack mission, but does admit they have been used in combat zones.
2) The Navy recognizes the animals use in Mine Detection, object/personnel recovery, and enemy detection
3) While originally a large array of animals were used, due to efficiency the only known mammals in-use are Bottlenose Dolphins and California Sea Lions. Since each of these creatures don't get too much larger than 500 lbs, they are easily deployable from San Diego to wherever they are needed. Earlier posts about using Orcas or larger creatures would most likely be more hassle than they are worth.
And at some places people PAY to be put through a strip search, sniffed by a dog, publicly humiliated and probed by a big guy with a grudge.
Doesn't mean I want this top happen to me... well at least not when I am trying to catch a flight... maybe if it is delayed, you know, to kill the time... If I put a sausage in my luggage, will that trigger that sniffer dog and his hunky handler?
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
He used terror to further his agenda. That makes him a terrorist. White people can be terrorists you know, and black people can be president, regardless of what McVeigh would have thought of that.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Not everything is about terrorism, it just sells now to call it that, but this kind of stuff went on during the cold war, it is a known fact that various armies (or rather navies) have used divers and small subs to sneak into harbours to blow stuff up. It is very difficult to protect against them and ship by their nature make high value targets. If you can sink or at least severely damage a carrier with just a small team... well that would be very nice indeed. Better then having to send in a fleet of your own to brawl it out on the open seas. Ask the Japanese how well that goes against a carrier.
And at war, if you blow up a tanker, that could cause even more damage when that goes up. Just ask the Americans at Pearl Harbor.
This seal defence is nothing more then having guard dogs around an army base. Or shouldn't we have them either because no terrorist would be silly enough to attack one of them either? Oh way, they did.
I for one think it is a good idea that they got guard seals around floating nuclear power stations, possibly armed with nuked, sitting on top of aviation fuel.
Amazing that even after Pearl Harbor you still think that in times of relative peace (and the US is involved in two wars) you don't have to guard your stuff. If I wanted to start a war, I would make sure to first disable what I can of the US fleet, build some small subs, strap high explosives to them, and bring them in to the harbors.
Read up on the Tirpitz and how it was disabled for the duration of WW2.
MMO Quests are like orgasms:
You may solo them, I prefer them in a group.
Marine Mammals Used to Fight Terrorism? They USED to? Why aren't they still doing it?
*This* is why we environmentalists want to protect marine life. It kicks ass.
Many environmental groups are on record as opposing the marine mammal program. You may be the minority in your own crowd.
Life is hard, and the world is cruel
Wasn't this done in Red Alert 2? Oh shit, we need to stop the Russians from taming giant squids!
As one of the dolphins in San Diego, all I can say is "Thanks for all the fish!"