US deploys dolphins in mine search
The specially-trained dolphins will start work today searching for mines in the approaches to the strategic port of Umm Qasr so a safe route can be created for shipments of humanitarian aid into Allied-held southern Iraq.
Scores of mines including relatively sophisticated Italian-made Manta mines which detonate when they pick up magnetic or acoustic signals have been found on Iraqi ships but there is a fear others may have already been sown.
As part of the US Navy's secret Marine Mammal Project, the dolphins have been trained to use their in-built sonar the clicking that humans can hear to locate mines which they then mark with floats.
They are taught to avoid touching the mines, which might cause the devices to explode, and Captain Mike Tillotson, a US Navy bomb disposal expert, said there was no significant risk to the animals doing this work.
The biggest hazard could come from other indigenous dolphins in the waters of Umm Qasr. Dolphins are territorial and there is a fear local dolphins might drive away the new comers.
The US Navy has been working on the dolphin mine-searching programme for years although this is its first operational deployment.
An earlier US project using dolphins to protect warships by butting enemy divers was used in the 1960s in Vietnam and during the Cold War the Soviet Union trained dolphins to plant limpet mines on enemy vessels.
The US Navy has more than 20 dolphins on the programme based in San Diego, California, and nine have been flown out to the Gulf for the war on Iraq, where they have spent the last few weeks on board a US warship in special tanks.
Tacoma, a 22-year-old male, and Makai, a 33-year-old male, were flown forward by helicopter yesterday on special travelling sleeves, doused with water, to the port at Umm Qasr.
American Navy warships suffered two mine strikes during the last Gulf War.
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