We have a tradition of using animals' special powers to help our police force, with the dog's special sense of smell being the most well-known example in searches for suspicious items in places like airports. But a much less well-known use is the military's use of dolphins. Dolphins possess an extraordinary sense of echolocation that no human device can imitate.
Dolphins emit a series of clicks that travel through the water until they encounter objects and bounce back as echoes. Leveraging the fact that sound travels 5x faster in water than air, Dolphins analyze these echoes to determine the size, shape, density, distance, and location of objects. This natural sonar is so refined that dolphins can distinguish between different types of materials and even identify objects buried under the seabed, such as mines.
Submarines typically possess a sonar radar that uses sound to locate targets. Still, it produces sound with a much lower frequency than dolphins, which makes it easier to look for large distances and large objects. But there are missions, like underwater mine detection tasks, where no technology beats the dolphins. They are trained in a way that allows them to discriminate if something below the sand is a triangle, circle, or square.
Despite their undeniable effectiveness, the use of dolphins in military roles is not without controversy. Ethical concerns regarding the welfare of these intelligent and sentient beings in military settings have sparked heated debates about the future of such programs. It's a reminder of the complex ethical considerations that arise when we harness the unique abilities of animals for our own purposes.
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