The few, the proud, the marine mammals

The Navy is once again mulling the idea of using specially trained dolphins and sea lions for military use. Yes, that’s right: the Navy is recruiting Flipper to patrol our coastal waters. The location would be a military base in the state of Washington, near Seattle, and more than a dozen California sea lions and Bottlenose Dolphins could be recruited for the effort, according to the Associated Press.

I know what you’re thinking right now: “But how will they hold a gun? Would it be some sort of weapon specially designed for a flipper, or are we talking head mounted lasers here?” The answer, of course is that these particular Navy recruits wouldn’t be foot soldiers, so to speak, but rather intelligence gatherers. Because of their sonar abilities, the dolphins would be used to locate rogue swimmers and divers, who would then be picked up by a human team for questioning and eventually—given the Bush Administration’s track record—extradited to Syria to be tortured.

The sea lions have a much bolder mission. According to the Associated Press and the U.S. Navy, sea lions would be trained to clamp a cuff around suspicious swimmers’ legs so they can be reeled into custody. If you’ve ever been to a zoo and seen these magnificent creatures in action, it’s not too hard to picture them in an espionage role—after all, if you can train them to balance a beach ball on their noses, then why not take it up a notch and add tactical surveillance to the list?

After reading the reports, I was somewhat skeptical that these types of military roles could be achieved by our underwater friends, so I went ahead and did a little research. Sure enough, sea lions and dolphins are used in a variety of missions in the U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program, including a number of mine removal operations during the first Iraq war and in a number of areas since then. All of this is according to the Navy, of course, and we’ll have to take their word for it since … well, let’s just say dolphins are pretty tight-lipped about their military roles.

But what marine mammals are used for most in the NMMP is to detect unauthorized swimmers, which is what their mission will mainly consist of off the coast of Washington. This raises two very important questions:

Who exactly is attempting to breach our nation’s borders by swimming to shore? Al-Qaeda? Russia? China? Can you really picture a Chinese operative telling his superior, “Hey, don’t worry about giving me a passport and plane ticket. I’ve got a way better idea … do we have any flippers?”
How devoted are these marine mammal soldiers to our country? We’re talking about dolphins here. What the hell do they care if someone sneaks by? How much are they putting into these patrols, in terms of effort? 110 percent? They’re not working for combat pay or Purple Hearts or even generals’ stars—they’re working for fish. Salty, tasty little fish, a school of which might just swim right past one of these marines during a patrol mission. What then?

Obviously, the animal rights community has been fighting this program for years, due to the obvious nature of the NMMP itself. What worries me more than the cruelty to the animals is the very threat of escalation it presents. If we continue with our marine mammal program, what will happen next? I’ll tell you exactly what happens: Complete Animal Warfare.

China will begin developing an Albatross Surveillance Program. These large, unassuming birds will patrol Eurasia and gather intelligence to spread Communism.

Italy and Greece will capture all of the stray dogs running around and release them after each one is equipped with a powerful audio recording device, sending them to every country except China (because, hey, we’ve all seen pictures of Chinese people eating dogs).

In an attempt to prevent any intelligence gathering, the European Union will intentionally spread bird flu in order to “ground” the albatross after the EU’s own counter-intelligence program breeding super rats (a natural enemy to the albatross) fails and results in a New Black Death.

And where will it end? Camels with mounted artillery? Or perhaps the Army could reinstate war elephants? He-Man had a tiger that was pretty tough … maybe the Marines could develop a similar program. Of course, they wouldn’t be able to operate in Asia due to the high number of poachers.

Perhaps war should be left to those who do it best: human beings. Or perhaps we should take a hint from our marine mammal friends and recognize the fact that we all share the same ecosystem. Co-existence is, after all, the only guarantee for survival.