Navy Dolphins Swim Sentinel in Persian Gulf

MANAMA, Bahrain — The U.S. Navy has deployed dolphins to the Persian Gulf region to protect coalition ships and piers against terrorist attack.

The dolphins are trained to find a swimmer or diver and alert their handlers by knocking a ball suspended from a patrol boat.

"If there are any uninvited guests — swimmers and divers — trying to cause harm to U.S. and coalition naval assets, the dolphins can detect and locate them," said Lt. Josh Frey, a spokesman of the 5th Fleet, which is based in Bahrain.

Citing security reasons, Lt. Cmdr. Martin Anderson would not say how many dolphins have arrived, when they were deployed and why they were brought in now.

"We have a good enough reason to employ them here," said Anderson, who commands the Naval Forces Central Command Special Operations at the 5th Fleet base.

Anderson spoke as a 400-pound dolphin named Luke made a brief appearance at the Mina Salman port swimming alongside a Navy patrol boat. The 29-year-old, 9-foot-long dolphin stood on its tail to receive a fish that a Navy handler on the patrol boat threw in his direction.

The Navy started using marine mammals in the early 1960s, when scientists studied if dolphins' sleek shape had hydrodynamic qualities that could help improve underwater missiles.

It used dolphins during the Vietnam War, and again in the Iraq war to detect mines at the country's only deep-water port, Umm Qasr.

Dolphins were last used in Bahrain in the late 1980s during the Iran-Iraq war, when several oil tankers were attacked in the Persian Gulf. At the time, six dolphins patrolled the Bahrain harbor to protect U.S. ships from mines and enemy swimmers and escorted Kuwaiti oil tankers.

The dolphins replace sea lions that were in the region to be trained and tested for similar duty.