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"Marine Mammals are a Force Multiplier"

The United States Navy has taken advantage of the millions of years of evolution that dolphins and sea lions have gone throuhg in order to help them with their missions with mine detection, object recovery, and identifying adversary's combat swimmers. The Navy's highly sophisticated training techniques help the dolphins and sea lions to accomplish these daunting tasks. The Marine Mammal Program began by studying how they can make their underwater weapons such as torpedoes better. Since the 1970s, the program has removed 40 exercise antisubmarine rockets, numerous exercise mines, and it has saved scarce funds by not having to have human divers do the job. Since about 1983, the Navy has developed their expeditionary capabilities to expand their missions from safe zones by sea shores to combat zones and even from ships. The Navy operates their Marine Mammal program under various protectionary acts from the federal government and other protection programs and their program in San Diego, California, is one of the most highly sophisticated programs for Marine Mammals in the nation. The success of these animals in the Marine Mammal Program has generated a proposal to expand their quickresponse capabilities to play a role in aircraft craches and body location and recovery.

Renwick, D. M., Simmons, R. & Truver, S. C. (August 1997). Marine Mammals are a Force Multiplier. United States Naval Institute Proceedings, 123(8), 52.