jump almost twenty feet in the air, they very rarely sort out how
easy it would be to roll over the top of an encircling trap. When
I explained to the chief veterinarian at Sea World that I had come
to spend some time with the Tursiops, he tried to be encouraging,
but it was clear they were not his favorite animals; the “bad boys
of the cetacean fraternity” he called them, and mentioned that
the aquarium sta= at Epcot had tried to put Tursiops in their large
sea tank but found that the males were so aggressive in their efforts to “breed” the sharks (family-park euphemism there) that it
was a matter of life and death — for the sharks, which ultimately
had to be quarantined. Inclined now and again to rake, butt, and
sodomize each other, these powerful sea mammals with fixed
grins have presented challenges to their keepers from the earliest days of captivity: one male in a Florida facility in the late
1940s used to spend a good deal of time hanging poolside, its
lengthy member inserted into the filtration hose, through which
ran a firm current of fresh seawater.
“What do they feel like?” asks the blond woman in a purple
and black wet suit who wears the Madonna mike. “A hot dog!”
chirps a small girl in a pink dress. And it’s true, I think, brushing
the top of a gaping snout as I dangle my limp fry over the deep,
pink throat guarded by a snapping jaw of needle-teeth — they do
feel very much like a hot dog.
Special Clearance Team One (primarily in mine detection operations — i.e., the dolphins assist in identifying and locating underwater explosives, using their natural capacities for echolocation).
Cleared through the checkpoint and clipped with a small red
security tag, I make my way down to the water’s edge in the company of a minder from the Navy’s Public A=airs O;ce. Now and
again the billowing thunder from a fighter jet—already long
gone over the Pacific—momentarily forestalls communication
and redlines the input indicator on my Dictaphone.
With the permission of my host, I step out onto the floating piers, where a dozen or so civilian employees pad around
in flip-flops, wearing sun visors and carrying large, cylindrical,
My guide rehearses the o;cial history and nonclassified operational specifics of the Navy’s Marine Mammal Program: Dating back to the early 1960s and emerging out of research into
hydrodynamics (it was briefly thought that the study of dolphin
swimming might lead to improvements in torpedo design), the
Navy’s work with captive Tursiops eventually gave rise to a then-secret plan to deploy trained dolphins in Vietnam, as part of an
e=ort to capture and/or kill Viet Cong sappers raiding the ammunition depots of Cam Ranh Bay. Though the deployment did
not last for very long, Navy records accounted the program a success, and military divers continued to expand the scope of their
tactical work with free-swimming trained bottlenose.
Some of the animals before me now are ready to go, should
the call come. Bayside personnel pride themselves on their ability
to get their Tursiops (which leap up out of the water into carrying
slings on command) aboard the cargo planes — accompanied by
their retinue of veterinary technicians and trainers, mobile tanks
and filtration systems— in a matter of hours. Deployment specifics are classified, but mine-sweeping dolphins (often outfitted,
cyborglike, with undersea cameras and other equipment) were
used at the start of the most recent Iraq war, and there is every
reason to think that some of the animals having their lunch right
here have done a tour in the Persian Gulf. Indeed, with life spans
when i explained tO the chief veterinarian at seawOrld that i had cOme tO spend sOme time with the tursiOps, he tried tO Be encOuraging, But it was clear they were nOt his favOrite animals; the “Bad BOys Of the cetacean fraternity” he called them.
fOr a Bracingly cOntrastive glimpse of the bottlenose, one
need only take a short drive south from the pink and green-blue
towers of SeaWorld, climbing over the ridge of Point Loma on
Nimitz Boulevard. A quick right turn, and Rosecrans Street peters out into a warren of armed gatehouses and federal installations. Welcome to the Bayside Campus of the Space and Naval
Warfare Systems Center (SPAWAR), home to about seventy-five
Tursiops truncatus, the majority of which are so-called “fleet animals” trained to perform military functions. Some of them deploy with the Navy’s Explosive Ordnance Disposal Mobile Units
(primarily in swimmer interdiction programs — i.e., the dolphins
serve as underwater watchdogs), and others work with Navy
