We've all heard of mans best friend being used for security, bomb detection, hunting, helping the disabled, and a million other things. When I hear the word "guard animal", I immediately picture a dog. Yet apparently they aren't the only animal we have trained to help. The US Navy, through their Marine Mammal Program, is dedicated to "studying, training, and deploying them." They use the dolphins sonar abilities to help locate sea mines and other nasty things in the ocean. This program also noticed that "Other marine mammals like the California sea lion also have demonstrated the ability to mark and retrieve objects for the Navy in the ocean." If this sounds as ridiculous as it did to me and you want to know this is legit, heres a link you can follow:
http://www.public.navy.mil/spawar/Pacific/71500/Pages/default.aspx
Apparently "The Navy also has two white whales, or belugas,... that have been subjects in a number of research projects and are currently on breeding loan." Personally, I think this is pretty cool.
Huh, I wonder if the Nazis had some sort of secret plan like this. Towards the end of their run they were throwing some seriously futile Hail Marys (i.e. the V-weapons). Who knows what laughably dubious Nazi ploys were lost in the currents of time?
ReplyDeleteAnyhow, it's funny how much this story juxtaposes with so many's views of the US military industrial complex. I mean, there's this societal undercurrent that depicts it as this omnipresent, Big Brother-esque harbinger of the apocalypse, where in reality it might be something much more akin to Sea World.