Posted on 03/28/2007 9:09:57 PM PDT by NormsRevenge
KEYPORT, Wash. - Critics of a Navy plan to use dolphins and sea lions to guard waters off the coast of a major submarine base say the ocean is too cold for the plan to work.
Other critics who showed up at a public open house Tuesday questioned the use of live animals rather than sophisticated technology at Hood Canal, home of the West Coast Trident submarine base.
The animals are trained to alert a handler when they detect anyone in the water. The handler, in a small boat, then places a strobe light on the nose of the animal, which speeds back and bumps the swimmer. The bump knocks light into the water, where it floats to mark the spot for security personnel to intercept the intruder.
Navy officials said the dolphins would work for a couple hours at a time before being returned to an enclosure with water conditions similar to those of San Diego.
"That'd be like you and me going into a blizzard for two hours and then put back into a San Diego environment," said Susan Scheirman of Bainbridge Island.
Dorian Houser, a marine mammal physiologist for the Navy, countered that studies show bottlenose dolphins can handle more extreme conditions and deal well with temperatures down to about 40 degrees, which Hood Canal rarely reaches.
The Navy has proposed using as many as 30 dolphins and California sea lions to help protect the sub base, which is believed to contain a large nuclear weapons stockpile.
Nine other options were given less favorable ratings in the Navy's environmental impact statement.
Navy officials note that dolphins and sea lions have guarded the shoreline at a similar sub base in Kings Bay, Ga., for two years.
Leigh Calvez of Bainbridge Island disputed Navy claims that the dolphin-sea lion proposal was the best technology available.
"We don't have anything as good as dolphins to protect us? That's hard to believe," she said.
Navy officials said other options included combat swimmers and remotely operated vehicles that have yet to be developed.
"If only we had the technology to do that," said Tom LaPuzza of the Navy Marine Mammal Program in San Diego. "Someday we will."
In this August 11, 2003, file photo, U.S Navy MM3 Matthew Ludwig, 22, trains a dolphin in Manama, Bahrain, against swimmers or divers attempting to commit terrorist attacks against U.S. and coalition ships and piers in the Gulf. Critics of a Navy plan to use dolphins and sea lions to guard waters off the coast of a major submarine base say the ocean is too cold for the plan to work. (AP Photo/Ali Fraidoon)
The water is too COLD? But I thought the oceans were BOILING, the ice was melting, polar bears getting cooked like lobsters, blah, blah, blah. Notice a pattern here? Stop the worlds most powerful economy in its tracks with global warming hysteria, PLUS undermine national defense!
...b-b-b-b-but -- dolphins are SMARTER than we are; surely they can refuse to do the job; they might even be able to recruit US to do THEIR dirty work.
So dolphins normally stay on the warm surface and never dive in warm waters? don't dolphins regularly dive to about 200m?
I wonder if we could ring some kinda huge dinnerbell for Great whites if we thought there were some terrorist divers around. I thought I remembered reading about something like that.
I would much rather have trained great white sharks doing the patrol duty. Or maybe large saltwater crocodiles, if they could stand the temperatures
The bad guys can get trained sharks to kill the seals and chase away the dolphins.
Dolphins will kill sharks by impact and have huge brains by comparison. Sharks are no match.
I was just reading at the outset of WWII, the Brit's "technical defense" of Scala harbor was stealthily breached by a U-boat submarine which torpedoed an immense British battleship. HMS Royal Oak rests in 80-feet of water today.
The Brits lost 800+ sailors in the opening days of the war—depending upon their "technical defense".
(WWII-History magazine).
BS.
Guide dogs for the blind? Companion monkeys for the disabled? Gold fish for the deaf? Give me a break, or a lizard with a choke collar.
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