Sea lions and dolphins may join war games

[Guest guest]

[This 500 BILLION dollar a year military industrial

complex still manages to find time to abuse animals

while its training for battling its nonexistent enemy.

The Navy's dolphins are kept in isolated hell all year

long down in San Diego. The public should demand an

end to this. Rick]

 

 

Sea lions and dolphins may join war games

 

Posted 6/22/2006 10:57 PM ET

 

 

HONOLULU (AP) — Alongside the submarines, ships and

airplanes participating in large-scale military

exercises in the Pacific this month, a team of sea

lions and dolphins are expected to patrol the sea.

These marine animals will be flown in from San Diego

for simulated mine recovery and mine detection during

the biennial RIMPAC war games.

 

Six bottle-nosed dolphins would find the mines, while

four California sea lions would help recover them.

 

" There are a number of mechanical systems that work to

some degree in those areas, but not as well as the

Navy would like them to work, " said Tom Lapuzza,

spokesman for the Navy's Marine Mammal Program.

" Unmanned vehicles are becoming better at finding

mines and being able to deal with them, but they are

still not as good as the dolphins are. "

 

More than 40 ships, six submarines, 160 aircraft and

nearly 19,000 military personnel are taking part in

RIMPAC 2006, which runs from Monday through July 28.

 

It brings together military forces from Australia,

Canada, Chile, Peru, Japan, the Republic of Korea, the

United Kingdom and the United States for training off

Hawaii.

 

But the high-tech gadgets deployed by the military

can't match the natural skills of the dolphins and sea

lions, Lapuzza said.

 

Sea lions have " incredibly good underwater hearing "

and can dive to 1,000 feet to attach a recovery line

to a simulated mine, he said. Dolphins use their sonar

to find the mines.

 

" For sure the divers and unmanned vehicles are going, "

he said. " They are thinking about taking dolphins, but

are not sure they are going to do that yet. "

 

Opponents of the program say the military should not

train animals for use in warfare.

 

" These animals are highly sensitive, deeply

intelligent creatures, and to use them for warfare is

to abuse them, " said Wayne Johnson, who is on the

board of Animal Rights Hawaii. " These animals need to

swim free. "

 

Marine mammals have been used by the Navy since the

early 1960s.

 

The animals save the Navy an estimated $1 million a

year, Lapuzza said.

 

The $15 million Marine Mammal Program has 75 dolphins

and 30 sea lions at its San Diego facility.

 

The four sea lions will be transported to Hawaii in

cages with pools of water, and dolphins are carried in

10-foot-long fiberglass boxes suspended in a sling and

enough water to enable them to float, Lapuzza said.

 

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