Mine-Detecting Dolphins Used in California Terror Drill

Kahili, a mine-hunting dolphin with a tracking device on its fin, leaps near a U.S. Navy handler in Iraq in 2003. The dolphin was one of several sent to clear the Umm Qasr harbor of mines. Brien Aho / U.S. Navy

Navy to showcase trained marine mammals in bay (San Francisco Chronicle):

Dolphins that can detect mines buried on the seafloor. Sea lions trained to cuff the leg of a waterborne saboteur. It sounds like the stuff of a James Bond film, or at least Austin Powers.

It’s actually the culmination of more than 40 years of U.S. Navy research that will be showcased today as part of a statewide exercise simulating suspected terrorist attacks on ports. Federal officials are seeing how the specially trained sea mammals, previously used almost exclusively for military operations, could be employed to help thwart a domestic terror attack.

“We are really putting our first foot forward in developing relationships with Homeland Security,” said Fred Jolly, who manages the team of animal handlers from the Navy Marine Mammal Program that came to San Francisco. “We are really at the forefront on what we can do domestically.”

Look for the Atlantic bottlenose dolphins and California sea lions to steal the show during the three-day simulation that will have hundreds of state, local and federal officials practicing their disaster response.

Details of this year’s scenario have not been released, but it will include a diver playing a saboteur attaching a fake limpet mine on a pier near AT&T Park, said Tom LaPuzza, spokesman for the Navy Marine Mammal Program.

Mine, diver detection

A specially trained sea lion will then be released to find the mine, swim back to his handlers, alert them to his discovery, then mark the spot so a Navy diver can find and remove the bomb, LaPuzza said.

Trained dolphins, whose internal sonar allows them to tell from 100 yards away through ink-black water what direction a diver is facing, will then try to track the submerged saboteur and indicate his location with a marker to alert the surface patrol, LaPuzza said.

Finally, a sea lion carrying in its mouth a specially designed leg cuff attached to a rope is supposed to clamp the cuff onto the diver’s leg, allowing authorities to reel in their suspect, officials said.

Other trained dolphins can find buried mines using their sonar or attach explosives to the anchor chain tethering a mine to the ocean floor.

“I go to work every day with a sense of astonishment with what we are capable of doing,” Jolly said.

The animals have been used since 1970, when dolphins were brought in to help protect an Army ammunition pier in Cam Ranh Bay that had been repeatedly blown up during the Vietnam War. The dolphins “were in Vietnam for six months. The pier was never blown up while they were there,” LaPuzza said. “As soon as they left, it was.”

Tracking the animal’s success rate is somewhat difficult, because officials say their presence alone is a deterrent.

Dolphins were brought to Bahrain in 1987 to protect a U.S. flagship anchored in Manama Harbor.

“The Third Fleet commander went to a cocktail party and, louder than he needed to, said that, ‘Navy swim-defense dolphins are protecting my ship at night.’ ” LaPuzza said. “After that point, swimming in the harbor stopped.”

The same type of dolphins were deployed during the 1996 Republican National Convention in San Diego.

In 2003, at the outset of the Iraq War, dolphins were brought in to clear mines from the Umm Qasr harbor to allow a humanitarian relief ship to enter. The dolphins were officially credited with finding 106 mines, although LaPuzza said he believes that total includes 100 mines found on a boat that hadn’t been deployed yet.

Based in San Diego

The program has about 80 dolphins and 30 sea lions, some with names like Viper or Iceman in a nod to the pilot call signs from the movie “Top Gun.” Its $20 million annual budget is about one percent of the military’s Space and Naval Warfare Systems Center Pacific $2.2 billion budget.

Most of the animals are based in San Diego and can be flown anywhere in the world in 72 hours, Jolly said.

Today’s training exercise will give city officials their first glimpse of an “intriguing” tool where natural ability trumps technology, Mayor Gavin Newsom said.

“This is going to be a unique opportunity,” Newsom said.