The dolphins deployed as underwater sentinels to the Arabian Gulf region by the U.S. Navy last year have been valuable in protecting coalition ships and piers against terrorist attacks, a Navy spokesmen said Friday. The dolphins, brought to the region in spring 2003, are trained to detect, locate and mark a threat swimmer or diver and alert their human handlers. "The mission is going well. The dolphins have provided a very valuable layer of defense here," said Lt. Josh Frey, spokesman for the 5th Fleet, which is based in Bahrain. "We judge their success by the fact that no terrorism has occurred here."
Citing security reasons, Frey would not say how many dolphins were deployed or how long they will be in the region. Lt. Kary Olson, who is in charge of these marine mammals, said this has been the longest combat theater deployment for the Mark 6 dolphins. As Olson spoke, a 400-pound dolphin named Luke made a splashing appearance inside a floating pen off the Mina Salman port, southeast of Manama. The 9-foot-long dolphin stood on its tail to receive a fish that a Navy handler on the patrol boat threw in his direction. "They need some time for fun," Olson said.
The Navy started using marine mammals in the early 1960s, when scientists studied if dolphins' sleek shape had hydrodynamic qualities that could help improve underwater missiles. It used dolphins during the Vietnam War and again in the Iraq war to detect mines at the country's only deep-water port, Umm Qasr. Dolphins were last used in Bahrain in the late 1980s during the Iran-Iraq war, when several oil tankers were attacked in the Arabian Gulf. At the time, six dolphins patrolled the Bahrain harbor to protect U.S. ships from mines and enemies. |