Speaker 1: Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey brain Stuff
Speaker 1: Lauren Vogelbaum here. Animals, for better or for worse, have
Speaker 1: a long history as faithful allies to humans in war zones.
Speaker 1: Perhaps the most notable of the battlefield animals is the horse,
Speaker 1: which throughout human history has aided soldiers during combat, and
Speaker 1: to this day, militaries still train dogs to guard sites
Speaker 1: and soldiers a find explosives, and conduct search and rescue.
Speaker 1: But still another animal aids the military by going where
Speaker 1: dogs and horses can't. Underwater undersea mines have been responsible
Speaker 1: for sinking or damaging many ships. Since World War II,
Speaker 1: more ships have been damaged from mines than from all
Speaker 1: other causes combined, including active enemy attacks. Beginning in the
Speaker 1: nineteen sixties, the US Navy's Marine Mammal Program started training
Speaker 1: bottlenose dolphins to find explosive minds under water as well
Speaker 1: as other suspicious objects. The dolphins don't disarm or explode
Speaker 1: the mines, but rather locate the mines for humans to
Speaker 1: subsequently disarm or mark for avoidance, all without putting the
Speaker 1: dolphin in any substantial danger. Trainers using fish as a
Speaker 1: reward and ignoring incorrect behaviors teach the dolphins to spot
Speaker 1: suspicious man made metal objects from far away. A dolphin
Speaker 1: learns to search for mines, and, upon finding one, swims
Speaker 1: back up to the trainer's boat to poke an appropriate
Speaker 1: signifier like a ball, with its nose. The humans then
Speaker 1: give the dolphin a boy or a special device known
Speaker 1: as an acoustic transponder, which the animal leaves in the
Speaker 1: area where it spotted the mine. An acoustic transponder produces
Speaker 1: a distinct sound that allows human divers to find it later.
Speaker 1: During the Cold War, the then classified Marine Mammal Program
Speaker 1: had over a hundred dolphins in its service, locating minds
Speaker 1: and other objects, delivering equipment to divers, and even helping
Speaker 1: guard vessels by alerting crude to potential threats like swimmers
Speaker 1: who might be looking to plant explosives. Though the Navy
Speaker 1: can equip dolphins with cameras and sensors, it's really the dolphins'
Speaker 1: natural abilities that make them perfect for jobs like mind detection.
Speaker 1: Unlike the mechanical devices that the Navy builds to detect minds,
Speaker 1: dolphins can easily tell the difference between man made and
Speaker 1: natural objects, and invaluable skill given mind makers can craftily
Speaker 1: disguise them. Dolphins have a remarkably sophisticated sonar ability, using
Speaker 1: their sense of hearing to perceive objects in even very
Speaker 1: murky water. This ability is so evolutionarily honed that human
Speaker 1: technology hasn't come close to replicating it. Sonar is short
Speaker 1: for sound navigation and ranging. It's a method of using
Speaker 1: and interpreting sounds to detect the location of something, especially
Speaker 1: in water, where it's handy for two reasons. First, bodies
Speaker 1: of water are often far too murky for sight, and second,
Speaker 1: sound travels well underwater. After all, sound travels by vibrating particles,
Speaker 1: and the particles in water are much denser than the
Speaker 1: particles in air, so water allows sound waves to move
Speaker 1: faster and for longer distances without degrading a Sonar technology
Speaker 1: works by sending out sounds and waiting for the sounds
Speaker 1: to bounce off of other objects and come back the
Speaker 1: same way that an echo bounces back to us in
Speaker 1: a cave. This technology is called active sonar, as opposed
Speaker 1: to passive sonar, or simply listening for the noises of
Speaker 1: other active objects. With sonar, we can interpret vital informations
Speaker 1: such as exactly how far away enemy submarines are Humans
Speaker 1: have been using sonar for over one hundred years, but
Speaker 1: dolphins have been at it for millennia. The tricks of
Speaker 1: sonar are built into their DNA, so much so that
Speaker 1: they can tell the difference between a beepy gun pellet
Speaker 1: and a kernel of corn from fifty feet away. A
Speaker 1: dolphin's sonar process, but also used by bats and some whales,
Speaker 1: is called echolocation. If you've ever heard a dolphin, you'll
Speaker 1: immediately recognize its characteristic clicks and squeaks. But there's more
Speaker 1: than meets the ear, and many of the noises they
Speaker 1: make are at frequencies too high for the human ear
Speaker 1: to detect. Essentially, dolphins use these clicks as active sonar mechanisms.
Speaker 1: A dolphin's echolocation process goes like this. The dolphin uses
Speaker 1: its nasal passages to make a series of clicks. The
Speaker 1: sound waves travel through its forehead, which contains a fatty
Speaker 1: organ called the melon that focuses and directs the waves
Speaker 1: as they move out into the water. When the sound
Speaker 1: waves hit an object in the water, they bounce back
Speaker 1: to the dolphin as an echo. The dolphin absorbs this
Speaker 1: returning echo through its lower jaw. Another passage of fat
Speaker 1: in the jaw conducts the sound to the dolphin's inner ear,
Speaker 1: which then exchanges nerve impulses with the brain to interpret
Speaker 1: the object's characteristics such as size, shape, and material. One
Speaker 1: way to think about the echolocation process is to imagine
Speaker 1: you're in a pitch black room with only a flickering
Speaker 1: flashlight to guide you. To help understand an object, a
Speaker 1: dolphin will move around it and read it from multiple
Speaker 1: points of view, as you might in the dark room,
Speaker 1: as well as with varying kinds of clicks. They'll even
Speaker 1: adapt for noisy environments by adjusting the frequency of their clicks.
Speaker 1: Using this process, dolphins can determine the size and shape
Speaker 1: of objects, and even in some cases distinguish different metals
Speaker 1: such as brass and copper from far away, which assists
Speaker 1: them in finding minds. However, this has also been why
Speaker 1: in the past dolphins were so prone to getting caught
Speaker 1: in fishing nets. The nets traditionally didn't seem to register
Speaker 1: to dolphins using sonar to navigate. Newer nets are equipped
Speaker 1: with shell shaped plastic beacons that reflect and amplify a
Speaker 1: collocation signals to help prevent these accidents. Researchers aren't sure
Speaker 1: how a dolphin's brain interprets sonar information. So much of
Speaker 1: our human understanding relies on visual information that it's hard
Speaker 1: for us to wrap our minds around the idea of
Speaker 1: seeing objects so specifically with our ears. Because dolphins are
Speaker 1: so good with sonar, studying them hopefully will help us
Speaker 1: improve our own sonar technology, and the Marine Mammal Program
Speaker 1: has funded all kinds of research into these and other
Speaker 1: marine animals physiology, health, behavior, and sensory systems. Thanks to
Speaker 1: this and other research, underwater drones are improving all the time,
Speaker 1: but the dolphins' capabilities are still unmatched, and the Marine
Speaker 1: Mammal Program persists to this day. Then has used bottlenosed
Speaker 1: dolphins and sometimes California sea lions as security agents, detecting
Speaker 1: swimmers and divers around vessels during the Vietnam War, the
Speaker 1: Gulf War, and beyond. The program was mostly declassified and
Speaker 1: heavily downsized in the nineteen nineties, but out of a
Speaker 1: base in San Diego, the Navy still trains both dolphins
Speaker 1: and sea lions as guards a plus the dolphins for
Speaker 1: mine location and the sea lions for equipment location and recovery.
Speaker 1: The sea lions can be trained to attach recovery lines
Speaker 1: to found equipment. Of course, using animals to do military
Speaker 1: work comes with a lot of questions. How are they
Speaker 1: cared for and how safe and satisfied are they during
Speaker 1: missions and transport. The Navy maintains a staff of trainers
Speaker 1: and veterinarians who administer daily preventative health care as well
Speaker 1: as regular exams, and they run mobile clinics that travel
Speaker 1: with the animals during deployment. Nting process is much safer
Speaker 1: for the dolphins than it might sound. Dolphins aren't trained
Speaker 1: to get close to a mine, but rather to sense
Speaker 1: it from a safe distance, and if the dolphins were
Speaker 1: to happen close to a mine, it shouldn't explode. Mines
Speaker 1: are not built to detonate when disturbed by marine life,
Speaker 1: but rather by large, heavy ships. If animals the size
Speaker 1: of dolphins could detonate a mine, the mine would explodes
Speaker 1: soon after being planted, a rendering it useless as a
Speaker 1: weapon against enemy ships. Still, animal rights groups find fault
Speaker 1: with the program. Deployment can mean transportation via ships, cargo planes,
Speaker 1: or trucks. The Navy uses special enclosures to keep the
Speaker 1: animals safe, but distance travel can be inherently uncomfortable, even
Speaker 1: for humans who understand what's going on. Plus, the waters
Speaker 1: that the animals are deployed into are unfamiliar environments, potentially
Speaker 1: with fairly different water conditions than what they're used to.
Speaker 1: There are regulations in place about things like temperature changes,
Speaker 1: but all of this could be a source of stress
Speaker 1: for the animals, which could have a negative impact on
Speaker 1: the animal's health and well being. Also, when an animal
Speaker 1: is retired, what happens then. Although a few of the
Speaker 1: program's animals have just left, they are trained partially in
Speaker 1: open waters, so they have that option. It's generally not
Speaker 1: recommended to release animals into the wild that are comfortable
Speaker 1: with humans and have come to rely on human provided
Speaker 1: food and shelter. Some retired dolphins have found homes in
Speaker 1: marine sanctuaries. Others have been kept in the Navy's care.
Speaker 1: From the other side of the Cold War, some of
Speaker 1: the Soviet Navy's dolphins originally trained for military operations have
Speaker 1: been retrained as therapy animals for children. In the end,
Speaker 1: animal activists question, is it ever okay to use creatures
Speaker 1: that are completely ignorant of the danger involved in war.
Speaker 1: Is there any benefit to human life that can excuse
Speaker 1: removing wild animals from wild environments or at least from
Speaker 1: adapted sanctuaries. Is the benefit that the animals receive from
Speaker 1: guaranteed food, shelter, and socialization worth it? These are complicated questions.
Speaker 1: If you'd like to learn more about the Marine mammal program,
Speaker 1: you can visit the United States Naval Undersea Museum online
Speaker 1: or in person in Keyport, Washington, or for personnel with
Speaker 1: base access in San Diego, you can schedule a tour
Speaker 1: through the Connaissance and Interdiction Division. Today's episode is based
Speaker 1: on the article how can dolphins disarmed Sea Mindes on
Speaker 1: HowStuffWorks dot Com, written by Jane mcgrat. Brain stuff It
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