Mine detectionDolphins, sea lions help Navy detect sea mines, underwater intruders

For decades, the Pentagon has been training dolphins and sea lions to help detect underwater mines and intruding divers near U.S. military bases and along the paths of U.S. and allied ships in foreign locations. The first dolphin trained in mine detection was Notty in 1960, and the program expanded after receiving a nod from President John F. Kennedy.

In San Diego, the U.S. Navy spends roughly $28 million a year to train and maintain about ninety dolphins and fifty California sea lions in a program run by the Space and Naval Warfare System Pacific (SPAWAR Systems Center Pacific or SSC Pacific). “Every day we interact with the animals,” said Trainer Chris Harris at the Naval Mine and Anti-Submarine Warfare Center (NMAWC).

The Navy’s Marine Mammal Systems (MMS) program has male and female dolphins and the sea lions are all neutered males. During training, Harris teaches sea lions how to respond when they detect a swimmer in a restricted area. According to the Los Angeles Times, a sea lion clamps a “bite plate” on the swimmer’s leg and takes the attached tether back to his handler.

Puanani, a seven feet, ten inches long, and 427 pounds bottlenose dolphin was born in the Gulf of Mexico and received initial training from the Navy in Hawaii. He was sent to the Persian Gulf during the invasion of Iraq. “She is deployable anytime, anywhere,” said Mark Patefield, Puanani’s lead trainer. “All we need is the word ‘go.’ ” Some Navy sea lions and dolphins guard bases at Kings Bay, Georgia and Bangor, Washington, where the Navy’s nuclear-armed Trident submarines are housed. During the Vietnam War, dolphins and sea lions helped guard the ammunition piers at Cam Ranh Bay.

At NMAWC, Unmanned Underwater Vehicles (UUVs) also train alongside sea lions and dolphins. The naval center operates the Kingfish, an eleven feet long, 600 pounds cigar-shaped UUV built by Hydroid, Inc., a Massachusetts-based defense contractor. Several UUVs are currently deployed to the Persian Gulf (a particular focus of the U.S. Navy because of threats by Iran to mine the waterway) and to the area patrolled by the Japan-based 7th Fleet. The Times notes that UUVs have also assisted in search missions, including the 1986 Space Shuttle Challenger disaster and Hurricane Katrina. During Operation Iraqi Freedom, UUVs worked alongside the Navy’s MMS to clear mines from the approach lanes of the Iraqi port, Umm Qasr.

In the future, the UUVs may replace the marine mammals in the mine-detection mission, but for now they share the assignment. “The mammals are the best at what they do,” said Mike Rothe, manager of the MMS program. “They’ve evolved over thousands of years to have a remarkable sonar. We’ve been developing the UUVs for several decades.”

The Navy insists that its marine mammals are not offensive weapons and are not trained to carry explosives. “They are large, smart, socially complex mammals with a mind of their own,” said Mark Xitco, supervisor of the program’s scientific and veterinary support branch. “We can’t force them to do anything they don’t want to do.” This is where the mission of UUVs differ from the Navy’s marine mammals. In 2005, the Navy announced that it would study offensive roles for UUVs, such as “emitting jamming or false data transmissions into an adversary’s command, control, and communications network.”

“The UUV Master Plan also envisions the eventual development of UUVs armed with land-attack weapons to provide time-critical strike capability,” wroteHunter Keeter, who at the time was an analyst with Anteon Corporation in Washington, D.C.