Military dolphin

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A U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program dolphin named K-Dog wearing a locating pinger, performed mine clearance work in the Persian Gulf during the Iraq War.

The United States and Russian militaries have trained and employed dolphins for several reasons. Such military dolphins have been trained to rescue lost divers or to locate underwater mines.

Rumors of controversial uses of military dolphins include training them to lay underwater mines, to kill enemy combatants, or to seek and destroy submarines using kamikaze methods. There has even been speculation about the potential development of sophisticated equipment, such as poison darts, sonar jamming devices, and so on for dolphins; and about combat between cetaceans of both superpowers. The U.S. Navy denies ever having trained its marine mammals to harm or injure humans in any fashion or to carry weapons to destroy ships.[1]

The Russian military is believed to have closed its marine mammal program in the early 1990s. In 2000 the press reported that dolphins trained to kill for the Soviet Navy had been sold to Iran. [2]

The U.S. Navy continues to openly train dolphins and sea lions under the U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program, which is based in San Diego, California. Military dolphins were used by the U.S. Navy during the First and Second Gulf War.[3]

In 2005, there were press reports that some U.S. military dolphins based on Lake Pontchartrain had escaped during the Hurricane Katrina flooding [4]. The U.S. Navy dismissed these stories as nonsense or a hoax, though they may be taking on the status of an urban myth.[5]