Navy May Use Mine-Detecting Dolphins In the Straight of Hormuz 204
New submitter cervesaebraciator writes "The Atlantic Wire reports that the Navy has a tested solution to the possible mining of the Strait of Hormuz. The Navy has 80 dolphins in San Diego Bay trained to use their own sonar to detect mines. When they find the mines, the dolphins drop an acoustic transponder nearby, so that human divers might return to defuse it. Retired Adm. Tim Keating cannot say, however, whether the dolphins will be used in the Straight."
The Obama administration has reportedly warned Iran that closing the Strait would provoke an American response.
Simple countermeasure - use anti-personnel mines (Score:5, Interesting)
Except in this case the personnel are dolphins.
Should be simple enough to rig one in ten of your mines with an acoustic package that responds to the presence of a Dolphin sonar frequency fingerprint by detonating. Need to be careful that it doesn't respond to a ship playing back Dolphin frequencies on its active sonar.
From what I understand about the sensitivity of marine mammals to extreme Sonar sound pressure - you wouldn't even need it to detonate - just let out a couple of sonic farts at 140db should deafen the Dolphins permanently. I'm sure the Navy has a nice retirement program for deaf Dolphins. Not like the US Navy could complain - no worse than they do during a typical navel exercise with the active sonar on their submarines and ships.
Always more marine mammals in the sea.
I doubt it. (Score:2, Interesting)
No matter how many dolphin friendly tuna have been trained, dolphins still die by the hundred each year in monofilament drift nets.
If we really want to save the dolphins, we need to give up eating tuna. Despite all the whining from PETA on that subject, there has been minimal effect. The death of brave dolphin fighters in protecting the god-given right to cheap oil will have a similar effect.
Nothing.
Poor bloody dolphins.
Re:inb4peta (Score:5, Interesting)
They have sex for fun
They also force their ladies to have sexy times through which is rape! The more you know! ===* [youtube.com]
second most intelligent creatures on the planet.
“For instance, on the planet Earth, man had always assumed that he was more intelligent than dolphins because he had achieved so much—the wheel, New York, wars and so on—whilst all the dolphins had ever done was muck about in the water having a good time. But conversely, the dolphins had always believed that they were far more intelligent than man—for precisely the same reasons.”
Douglas Adams, The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy
Does it actually work? (Score:5, Interesting)
I once saw a tv show where they talked about these military dolphins. I can't recall what the program was, but the outcome wasn't that great. They basically said the dolphins, being such intelligent creatures, sometimes actually lied for the fun of it. Unlike the dogs who simply do what they're told, the dolphins actually played with the rules and would say no mine was there even if they knew they were spotted as being lying.
Maybe the psychological side of the training has evolved since then, or maybe it was just a campaign of misinformation, but if it's actually true, doesn't sound too great for this theory...
Re:straight straits (Score:5, Interesting)
Slashdot: a new frontier in illiteracy.