November 26, 2025 • 11 mins
The U.S. Navy has been training bottlenose dolphins for operations like detecting undersea mines and guarding vessels since the 1960s. Learn about the Marine Mammal Program in this episode of BrainStuff, based on this article: https://animals.howstuffworks.com/mammals/dolphin-disarm-sea-mine.htm
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey brain Stuff
Lauren Vogelbaum here. Animals, for better or for worse, have
a long history as faithful allies to humans in war zones.
Perhaps the most notable of the battlefield animals is the horse,
which throughout human history has aided soldiers during combat, and
(00:25):
to this day, militaries still train dogs to guard sites
and soldiers a find explosives, and conduct search and rescue.
But still another animal aids the military by going where
dogs and horses can't. Underwater undersea mines have been responsible
for sinking or damaging many ships. Since World War II,
(00:49):
more ships have been damaged from mines than from all
other causes combined, including active enemy attacks. Beginning in the
nineteen sixties, the US Navy's Marine Mammal Program started training
bottlenose dolphins to find explosive minds under water as well
as other suspicious objects. The dolphins don't disarm or explode
(01:09):
the mines, but rather locate the mines for humans to
subsequently disarm or mark for avoidance, all without putting the
dolphin in any substantial danger. Trainers using fish as a
reward and ignoring incorrect behaviors teach the dolphins to spot
suspicious man made metal objects from far away. A dolphin
(01:30):
learns to search for mines, and, upon finding one, swims
back up to the trainer's boat to poke an appropriate
signifier like a ball, with its nose. The humans then
give the dolphin a boy or a special device known
as an acoustic transponder, which the animal leaves in the
area where it spotted the mine. An acoustic transponder produces
(01:51):
a distinct sound that allows human divers to find it later.
During the Cold War, the then classified Marine Mammal Program
had over a hundred dolphins in its service, locating minds
and other objects, delivering equipment to divers, and even helping
guard vessels by alerting crude to potential threats like swimmers
who might be looking to plant explosives. Though the Navy
(02:14):
can equip dolphins with cameras and sensors, it's really the dolphins'
natural abilities that make them perfect for jobs like mind detection.
Unlike the mechanical devices that the Navy builds to detect minds,
dolphins can easily tell the difference between man made and
natural objects, and invaluable skill given mind makers can craftily
(02:35):
disguise them. Dolphins have a remarkably sophisticated sonar ability, using
their sense of hearing to perceive objects in even very
murky water. This ability is so evolutionarily honed that human
technology hasn't come close to replicating it. Sonar is short
for sound navigation and ranging. It's a method of using
(02:58):
and interpreting sounds to detect the location of something, especially
in water, where it's handy for two reasons. First, bodies
of water are often far too murky for sight, and second,
sound travels well underwater. After all, sound travels by vibrating particles,
and the particles in water are much denser than the
(03:19):
particles in air, so water allows sound waves to move
faster and for longer distances without degrading a Sonar technology
works by sending out sounds and waiting for the sounds
to bounce off of other objects and come back the
same way that an echo bounces back to us in
a cave. This technology is called active sonar, as opposed
(03:40):
to passive sonar, or simply listening for the noises of
other active objects. With sonar, we can interpret vital informations
such as exactly how far away enemy submarines are Humans
have been using sonar for over one hundred years, but
dolphins have been at it for millennia. The tricks of
sonar are built into their DNA, so much so that
(04:03):
they can tell the difference between a beepy gun pellet
and a kernel of corn from fifty feet away. A
dolphin's sonar process, but also used by bats and some whales,
is called echolocation. If you've ever heard a dolphin, you'll
immediately recognize its characteristic clicks and squeaks. But there's more
than meets the ear, and many of the noises they
(04:25):
make are at frequencies too high for the human ear
to detect. Essentially, dolphins use these clicks as active sonar mechanisms.
A dolphin's echolocation process goes like this. The dolphin uses
its nasal passages to make a series of clicks. The
sound waves travel through its forehead, which contains a fatty
(04:46):
organ called the melon that focuses and directs the waves
as they move out into the water. When the sound
waves hit an object in the water, they bounce back
to the dolphin as an echo. The dolphin absorbs this
returning echo through its lower jaw. Another passage of fat
in the jaw conducts the sound to the dolphin's inner ear,
which then exchanges nerve impulses with the brain to interpret
(05:09):
the object's characteristics such as size, shape, and material. One
way to think about the echolocation process is to imagine
you're in a pitch black room with only a flickering
flashlight to guide you. To help understand an object, a
dolphin will move around it and read it from multiple
points of view, as you might in the dark room,
(05:30):
as well as with varying kinds of clicks. They'll even
adapt for noisy environments by adjusting the frequency of their clicks.
Using this process, dolphins can determine the size and shape
of objects, and even in some cases distinguish different metals
such as brass and copper from far away, which assists
them in finding minds. However, this has also been why
(05:55):
in the past dolphins were so prone to getting caught
in fishing nets. The nets traditionally didn't seem to register
to dolphins using sonar to navigate. Newer nets are equipped
with shell shaped plastic beacons that reflect and amplify a
collocation signals to help prevent these accidents. Researchers aren't sure
(06:15):
how a dolphin's brain interprets sonar information. So much of
our human understanding relies on visual information that it's hard
for us to wrap our minds around the idea of
seeing objects so specifically with our ears. Because dolphins are
so good with sonar, studying them hopefully will help us
improve our own sonar technology, and the Marine Mammal Program
(06:38):
has funded all kinds of research into these and other
marine animals physiology, health, behavior, and sensory systems. Thanks to
this and other research, underwater drones are improving all the time,
but the dolphins' capabilities are still unmatched, and the Marine
Mammal Program persists to this day. Then has used bottlenosed
(07:01):
dolphins and sometimes California sea lions as security agents, detecting
swimmers and divers around vessels during the Vietnam War, the
Gulf War, and beyond. The program was mostly declassified and
heavily downsized in the nineteen nineties, but out of a
base in San Diego, the Navy still trains both dolphins
(07:22):
and sea lions as guards a plus the dolphins for
mine location and the sea lions for equipment location and recovery.
The sea lions can be trained to attach recovery lines
to found equipment. Of course, using animals to do military
work comes with a lot of questions. How are they
cared for and how safe and satisfied are they during
(07:44):
missions and transport. The Navy maintains a staff of trainers
and veterinarians who administer daily preventative health care as well
as regular exams, and they run mobile clinics that travel
with the animals during deployment. Nting process is much safer
for the dolphins than it might sound. Dolphins aren't trained
to get close to a mine, but rather to sense
(08:07):
it from a safe distance, and if the dolphins were
to happen close to a mine, it shouldn't explode. Mines
are not built to detonate when disturbed by marine life,
but rather by large, heavy ships. If animals the size
of dolphins could detonate a mine, the mine would explodes
soon after being planted, a rendering it useless as a
weapon against enemy ships. Still, animal rights groups find fault
(08:31):
with the program. Deployment can mean transportation via ships, cargo planes,
or trucks. The Navy uses special enclosures to keep the
animals safe, but distance travel can be inherently uncomfortable, even
for humans who understand what's going on. Plus, the waters
that the animals are deployed into are unfamiliar environments, potentially
(08:54):
with fairly different water conditions than what they're used to.
There are regulations in place about things like temperature changes,
but all of this could be a source of stress
for the animals, which could have a negative impact on
the animal's health and well being. Also, when an animal
is retired, what happens then. Although a few of the
(09:15):
program's animals have just left, they are trained partially in
open waters, so they have that option. It's generally not
recommended to release animals into the wild that are comfortable
with humans and have come to rely on human provided
food and shelter. Some retired dolphins have found homes in
marine sanctuaries. Others have been kept in the Navy's care.
(09:37):
From the other side of the Cold War, some of
the Soviet Navy's dolphins originally trained for military operations have
been retrained as therapy animals for children. In the end,
animal activists question, is it ever okay to use creatures
that are completely ignorant of the danger involved in war.
Is there any benefit to human life that can excuse
(09:58):
removing wild animals from wild environments or at least from
adapted sanctuaries. Is the benefit that the animals receive from
guaranteed food, shelter, and socialization worth it? These are complicated questions.
If you'd like to learn more about the Marine mammal program,
you can visit the United States Naval Undersea Museum online
(10:22):
or in person in Keyport, Washington, or for personnel with
base access in San Diego, you can schedule a tour
through the Connaissance and Interdiction Division. Today's episode is based
on the article how can dolphins disarmed Sea Mindes on
HowStuffWorks dot Com, written by Jane mcgrat. Brain stuff It
(10:43):
is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership with how stuffworks
dot Com and is produced by Tyler Klang. For more
podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
Welcome to Brainstuff, a production of iHeartRadio, Hey brain Stuff
Lauren Vogelbaum here. Animals, for better or for worse, have
a long history as faithful allies to humans in war zones.
Perhaps the most notable of the battlefield animals is the horse,
which throughout human history has aided soldiers during combat, and
(00:25):
to this day, militaries still train dogs to guard sites
and soldiers a find explosives, and conduct search and rescue.
But still another animal aids the military by going where
dogs and horses can't. Underwater undersea mines have been responsible
for sinking or damaging many ships. Since World War II,
(00:49):
more ships have been damaged from mines than from all
other causes combined, including active enemy attacks. Beginning in the
nineteen sixties, the US Navy's Marine Mammal Program started training
bottlenose dolphins to find explosive minds under water as well
as other suspicious objects. The dolphins don't disarm or explode
(01:09):
the mines, but rather locate the mines for humans to
subsequently disarm or mark for avoidance, all without putting the
dolphin in any substantial danger. Trainers using fish as a
reward and ignoring incorrect behaviors teach the dolphins to spot
suspicious man made metal objects from far away. A dolphin
(01:30):
learns to search for mines, and, upon finding one, swims
back up to the trainer's boat to poke an appropriate
signifier like a ball, with its nose. The humans then
give the dolphin a boy or a special device known
as an acoustic transponder, which the animal leaves in the
area where it spotted the mine. An acoustic transponder produces
(01:51):
a distinct sound that allows human divers to find it later.
During the Cold War, the then classified Marine Mammal Program
had over a hundred dolphins in its service, locating minds
and other objects, delivering equipment to divers, and even helping
guard vessels by alerting crude to potential threats like swimmers
who might be looking to plant explosives. Though the Navy
(02:14):
can equip dolphins with cameras and sensors, it's really the dolphins'
natural abilities that make them perfect for jobs like mind detection.
Unlike the mechanical devices that the Navy builds to detect minds,
dolphins can easily tell the difference between man made and
natural objects, and invaluable skill given mind makers can craftily
(02:35):
disguise them. Dolphins have a remarkably sophisticated sonar ability, using
their sense of hearing to perceive objects in even very
murky water. This ability is so evolutionarily honed that human
technology hasn't come close to replicating it. Sonar is short
for sound navigation and ranging. It's a method of using
(02:58):
and interpreting sounds to detect the location of something, especially
in water, where it's handy for two reasons. First, bodies
of water are often far too murky for sight, and second,
sound travels well underwater. After all, sound travels by vibrating particles,
and the particles in water are much denser than the
(03:19):
particles in air, so water allows sound waves to move
faster and for longer distances without degrading a Sonar technology
works by sending out sounds and waiting for the sounds
to bounce off of other objects and come back the
same way that an echo bounces back to us in
a cave. This technology is called active sonar, as opposed
(03:40):
to passive sonar, or simply listening for the noises of
other active objects. With sonar, we can interpret vital informations
such as exactly how far away enemy submarines are Humans
have been using sonar for over one hundred years, but
dolphins have been at it for millennia. The tricks of
sonar are built into their DNA, so much so that
(04:03):
they can tell the difference between a beepy gun pellet
and a kernel of corn from fifty feet away. A
dolphin's sonar process, but also used by bats and some whales,
is called echolocation. If you've ever heard a dolphin, you'll
immediately recognize its characteristic clicks and squeaks. But there's more
than meets the ear, and many of the noises they
(04:25):
make are at frequencies too high for the human ear
to detect. Essentially, dolphins use these clicks as active sonar mechanisms.
A dolphin's echolocation process goes like this. The dolphin uses
its nasal passages to make a series of clicks. The
sound waves travel through its forehead, which contains a fatty
(04:46):
organ called the melon that focuses and directs the waves
as they move out into the water. When the sound
waves hit an object in the water, they bounce back
to the dolphin as an echo. The dolphin absorbs this
returning echo through its lower jaw. Another passage of fat
in the jaw conducts the sound to the dolphin's inner ear,
which then exchanges nerve impulses with the brain to interpret
(05:09):
the object's characteristics such as size, shape, and material. One
way to think about the echolocation process is to imagine
you're in a pitch black room with only a flickering
flashlight to guide you. To help understand an object, a
dolphin will move around it and read it from multiple
points of view, as you might in the dark room,
(05:30):
as well as with varying kinds of clicks. They'll even
adapt for noisy environments by adjusting the frequency of their clicks.
Using this process, dolphins can determine the size and shape
of objects, and even in some cases distinguish different metals
such as brass and copper from far away, which assists
them in finding minds. However, this has also been why
(05:55):
in the past dolphins were so prone to getting caught
in fishing nets. The nets traditionally didn't seem to register
to dolphins using sonar to navigate. Newer nets are equipped
with shell shaped plastic beacons that reflect and amplify a
collocation signals to help prevent these accidents. Researchers aren't sure
(06:15):
how a dolphin's brain interprets sonar information. So much of
our human understanding relies on visual information that it's hard
for us to wrap our minds around the idea of
seeing objects so specifically with our ears. Because dolphins are
so good with sonar, studying them hopefully will help us
improve our own sonar technology, and the Marine Mammal Program
(06:38):
has funded all kinds of research into these and other
marine animals physiology, health, behavior, and sensory systems. Thanks to
this and other research, underwater drones are improving all the time,
but the dolphins' capabilities are still unmatched, and the Marine
Mammal Program persists to this day. Then has used bottlenosed
(07:01):
dolphins and sometimes California sea lions as security agents, detecting
swimmers and divers around vessels during the Vietnam War, the
Gulf War, and beyond. The program was mostly declassified and
heavily downsized in the nineteen nineties, but out of a
base in San Diego, the Navy still trains both dolphins
(07:22):
and sea lions as guards a plus the dolphins for
mine location and the sea lions for equipment location and recovery.
The sea lions can be trained to attach recovery lines
to found equipment. Of course, using animals to do military
work comes with a lot of questions. How are they
cared for and how safe and satisfied are they during
(07:44):
missions and transport. The Navy maintains a staff of trainers
and veterinarians who administer daily preventative health care as well
as regular exams, and they run mobile clinics that travel
with the animals during deployment. Nting process is much safer
for the dolphins than it might sound. Dolphins aren't trained
to get close to a mine, but rather to sense
(08:07):
it from a safe distance, and if the dolphins were
to happen close to a mine, it shouldn't explode. Mines
are not built to detonate when disturbed by marine life,
but rather by large, heavy ships. If animals the size
of dolphins could detonate a mine, the mine would explodes
soon after being planted, a rendering it useless as a
weapon against enemy ships. Still, animal rights groups find fault
(08:31):
with the program. Deployment can mean transportation via ships, cargo planes,
or trucks. The Navy uses special enclosures to keep the
animals safe, but distance travel can be inherently uncomfortable, even
for humans who understand what's going on. Plus, the waters
that the animals are deployed into are unfamiliar environments, potentially
(08:54):
with fairly different water conditions than what they're used to.
There are regulations in place about things like temperature changes,
but all of this could be a source of stress
for the animals, which could have a negative impact on
the animal's health and well being. Also, when an animal
is retired, what happens then. Although a few of the
(09:15):
program's animals have just left, they are trained partially in
open waters, so they have that option. It's generally not
recommended to release animals into the wild that are comfortable
with humans and have come to rely on human provided
food and shelter. Some retired dolphins have found homes in
marine sanctuaries. Others have been kept in the Navy's care.
(09:37):
From the other side of the Cold War, some of
the Soviet Navy's dolphins originally trained for military operations have
been retrained as therapy animals for children. In the end,
animal activists question, is it ever okay to use creatures
that are completely ignorant of the danger involved in war.
Is there any benefit to human life that can excuse
(09:58):
removing wild animals from wild environments or at least from
adapted sanctuaries. Is the benefit that the animals receive from
guaranteed food, shelter, and socialization worth it? These are complicated questions.
If you'd like to learn more about the Marine mammal program,
you can visit the United States Naval Undersea Museum online
(10:22):
or in person in Keyport, Washington, or for personnel with
base access in San Diego, you can schedule a tour
through the Connaissance and Interdiction Division. Today's episode is based
on the article how can dolphins disarmed Sea Mindes on
HowStuffWorks dot Com, written by Jane mcgrat. Brain stuff It
(10:43):
is a production of iHeartRadio in partnership with how stuffworks
dot Com and is produced by Tyler Klang. For more
podcasts from my heart Radio, visit the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts,
or wherever you listen to your favorite shows.
BrainStuff News
Host
Lauren Vogelbaum
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Las Culturistas with Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang
Ding dong! Join your culture consultants, Matt Rogers and Bowen Yang, on an unforgettable journey into the beating heart of CULTURE. Alongside sizzling special guests, they GET INTO the hottest pop-culture moments of the day and the formative cultural experiences that turned them into Culturistas. Produced by the Big Money Players Network and iHeartRadio.
Crime Junkie
Does hearing about a true crime case always leave you scouring the internet for the truth behind the story? Dive into your next mystery with Crime Junkie. Every Monday, join your host Ashley Flowers as she unravels all the details of infamous and underreported true crime cases with her best friend Brit Prawat. From cold cases to missing persons and heroes in our community who seek justice, Crime Junkie is your destination for theories and stories you won’t hear anywhere else. Whether you're a seasoned true crime enthusiast or new to the genre, you'll find yourself on the edge of your seat awaiting a new episode every Monday. If you can never get enough true crime... Congratulations, you’ve found your people. Follow to join a community of Crime Junkies! Crime Junkie is presented by audiochuck Media Company.