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Marine Mammals Used To Fight Terrorism

Posted by samzenpus on from the jones-the-enhanced-dolphin dept.

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."

9 of 131 comments (clear)

  1. Marine Life Kicks Ass by eagee · · Score: 4, Informative

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

    1. Re:Marine Life Kicks Ass by durrr · · Score: 4, Funny

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

    2. Re:Marine Life Kicks Ass by Barrinmw · · Score: 4, Insightful

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

    3. Re:Marine Life Kicks Ass by christianT · · Score: 4, Funny

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

  2. Dophins trained to kill by Quato · · Score: 5, Interesting

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

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

  3. This is not new by bigredradio · · Score: 4, Informative

    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).

    --
    Flexible bare-metal recovery for Linux/UNIX
  4. locating terrorist by bagofbeans · · Score: 4, Funny

    A dolphin quickly located a terrorist

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

    1. Re:locating terrorist by Barrinmw · · Score: 5, Funny

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

  5. Cute application, but why? by BobMcD · · Score: 5, Informative

    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.