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."

Comments

Marine Life Kicks Ass

[eagee]

*This* is why we environmentalists want to protect marine life. It kicks ass.

Re:Marine Life Kicks Ass

[durrr]

We need a new enviromental protection agency to protect us from the enviroment.

Re:Marine Life Kicks Ass

[Mister Whirly]

No, we need an Environmental Protection Agency that actually protects the environment instead of business interests. Non-mandatory pollution reduction programs instead of regulations - who knew only 2 businesses in the country would sign up for them and reduce pollution on their own without being legally obligated to do so?

Re:Marine Life Kicks Ass

[Barrinmw]

You took something moderately funny and ruined it. You sir, are a fail.

Re:Marine Life Kicks Ass

[Paranatural]

No, we need an Environmental Protection Agency that actually protects the environment instead of business interests. Non-mandatory pollution reduction programs instead of regulations - who knew only 2 businesses in the country would sign up for them and reduce pollution on their own without being legally obligated to do so?

People with functioning brains?

Re:Marine Life Kicks Ass

[christianT]

Wow! From zero to crazed activist in three posts. I think this is a new record!

Re:Marine Life Kicks Ass

[CoryD]

Someone who believes that pollution reduction should be mandatory is a crazed activist? I think I'll side with the "crazed activist" who never stated what kind of programs he had in mind. Rather than you being my other option, the overly dramatic nut job that thinks the pretty sunsets over industry cities are just enhanced scenery. I'm mean, if we're throwing around blind accusations, that IS accurate no?

Be carefull

[geekoid]

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/

Re:Be carefull

[element-o.p.]

Yes, he did it on porpoise.

(Actually, what he typed was wrong in either case: "proposes", as in, "He proposes to his girlfriend tonight.").

Dophins trained to kill

[Quato]

It's the Iranian Kamakaze Dolphins you have to worry about!

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/middle_east/670551.stm

*CUE* the 'frickin laser' jokes

[kg8484]

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?

Re:*CUE* the 'frickin laser' jokes

[nemasu]

#include #include void main() { std::queue Q; Q.push_back("Need more frickin' sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their frickin' heads!"); Q.push_back("mutated sea bass?"); Q.push_back("Well, it's a start"); return; }

Re:*CUE* the 'frickin laser' jokes

[riverat1]

If enough of the 'frickin laser' jokes were made you would have a queue of them.

Re:*CUE* the 'frickin laser' jokes

[nemasu]

Apparently the /. comment editor makes a horrible IDE.

....I don't know why I'm fixing this

Tested under MSVS2008

#include <string>
#include <queue>

int main(void)
{
    std::queue<std::string> Q;
    Q.push("Need more frickin' sharks with frickin' laser beams attached to their frickin' heads!");
    Q.push("mutated sea bass?");
    Q.push("Well, it's a start");
    return 0x2A;
}

This is not new

[bigredradio]

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).

Re:This is not new

[TheLink]

> They regretted not using killer whales in the Hanoi harbor to exploit the Vietnamese cultural fear of large fish.

Cultural fear of large fish? I'm not Vietnamese and I think I'd have a better chance against an attacking great white shark than a killer whale.

Or at least a quicker death. See what killer whales get up to with their prey: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6xk0fc_FzUs

Jeez .. you youngsters

[OzPeter]

The Day of the Dolphin Now git off my lawn or patch of seaweed or what ever is appropriate for you to git off

Re:Sharks

[Kell Bengal]

Surely you mean dolphins with frick'n lasers?

A tense situation

[djconrad]

Marine mammals used to fight terrorism? Why did they stop?

locating terrorist

[bagofbeans]

A dolphin quickly located a terrorist

Shouldn't TSA be given this detection technology to, ya know, help 'em out a little?

Re:locating terrorist

[Barrinmw]

"Sir, will you please jump in this large tank of water so that the dolphin can scan you."

Re:locating terrorist

[lennier1]

Hey, at other places people pay a lot of money to swim with dolphins.

Queue

[mcsqueak]

I love it when my 'frickin lasers' jokes are in nice, orderly lines... ;)

Cute application, but why?

[BobMcD]

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.

Re:Cute application, but why?

[Infiniti2000]

This is a truly novel approach, but what kind of sophisticated aqua-terrorists are we genuinely preparing to encounter?

Prior to 9/11, people like you would ask the same questions about civilian aircraft. Maybe you should pull your head out of your ass and look towards all avenues of terrorism.

Re:Cute application, but why?

[BobMcD]

My head is in the fresh, clean air, thank you.

I am looking at all avenues of terrorism, which only include things that would terrorize us, and not every conceivable thing the US Government would like to spend tax money on.

Rationalize for me how the plot of your typical action movie would generate fear in the general public. Please.

Head in ass, indeed.

Re:Cute application, but why?

[robot256]

IIRC, the Mumbai bombings were executed by terrorist operatives who swam to shore from dinghies in scuba gear in order to enter the country illegally. But yes, it does just sound like an excuse for sharks with lasers.

Re:Cute application, but why?

[nohelix]

This is a truly novel approach, but what kind of sophisticated aqua-terrorists are we genuinely preparing to encounter?

This is not a novel approach.
Both the US and Russian governments have been training and using marine mammals (wikipedia) as well as other animals (wikipedia) to help with military tasks. Dolphins and sea lines have been in training and use in the Gulf Wars. Perhaps the funniest example of military animals is the dogs that the failed Russian anti-tank dogs (wikipeida) that due to their training attacked Russian instead of enemy tanks. Its worth noting that this was again unsuccessfully attempted by Iraqi insurgents in 2005.

Re:Cute application, but why?

[riverat1]

One persons terrorist is another persons freedom fighter. It all depends on your POV.

Re:Cute application, but why?

[sumdumass]

Yep, it sure is in the union regulations. I have the regulation manual right here and on page 29 titled section 219- paragraph A- subsection S, it says that in order for a child apprentice to become a legitimate terrorist, it has to take the diaper off their ass and put it on their head. When the diaper is full of shit again, it gets called a turban and they are bona fide terrorists subject to wages of scale until they die.

Re:Sharks

[Gravitron 5000]

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.

mIRC even has a built in script for it!

[AVryhof]

/me Slaps Terrorists around with a Fish