New row erupts over use of animals in war

In all the papers this morning: one of the most extraordinary stories of the year opens a window onto the murky world of global spying and the potential abuse of animal intelligence for human gain. A group of Norwegian fishermen have made a strange discovery: an beluga whale wearing a harness, floating in the waters just off the side of their boat. The whale seemed tame and comfortable in the presence of humans, but the harness it was wearing looked far too tight. The fishermen were worried, so they contacted a group of scientists to see if they could try and save it. The scientists managed to remove the harness. When they did, they spotted some text on it: "Equipment of St. PetersburgSaint Petersburg is Russia’s second-largest city after Moscow.". Researchers say that the harness could have carried weapons or cameras, triggering new speculations about a sea mammal special operations programme that the Russian navy is believed to have pursued for years. In 1980s SovietRelating to the Soviet Union, a powerful group of communist republics, the biggest being Russia, that existed from 1922 to 1991. Russia, a programme saw dolphins recruited for military training: their razor-sharp vision, stealth and good memory making them them effective underwater tools for detecting weapons. This mammal programme closed in the 1990s. However, a 2017 report by TV ZvezdaA Russian nationwide TV network run by the Ministry of Defence., a station owned by the defence ministry, revealed that the Russian navy has again been training beluga whales, seals and bottlenose dolphins for military purposes in polar waters. America, for its part, trains dolphins as well as sea lions under the US Navy Marine Mammal Program, based in San Diego, California. It has been claimed military dolphins have been trained to carry poison darts, lay underwater mines, locate enemy fighters, or even to seek and destroy submarines using kamikazeA sudden violent attack on an enemy — often one in which the attackers know they will be killed. Named after a Japanese military unit that carried out suicide attacks during World War Two. methods. Animals have been serving in the military as early as 1908, when Germans first attached cameras to pigeons to take aerial photographs. In 2011, Saudi authorities arrested a high-flying vulture on suspicion that it was flying missions for Israel's famously ingenious Mossad agency. And a spate of shark attacks near the Red Sea resort of Sharm el-Sheikh in 2010 was blamed by one TV station on GPS-controlled predators planted by Israel in order to harm the Egyptian tourism industry. In 2007, the Iranian army arrested a team of 14 "spy squirrels" found near a nuclear enrichment plant. Officials said they succeeded in apprehending the suspects "before they were able to take any action". The CIA's attempt to implant listening devices into a cat — dubbed Operation Acoustic Kitty — ended in failure on day one, when the kitty was run over by a car outside the Soviet embassy in Washington DC. The project was estimated to have cost 10 million. Another failed project was the Bat Bomb, tried by America in World War Two, where bats were strapped to mini-incendiary devices and dropped over Japan. The idea was for them to roost inside wooden, Japanese buildings before bursting into flames. Isn't this cruel and illegal? "Even wars have rules," says William Rossiter, head of whale charity CetaceanAquatic, marine mammals, such as whales, dolphins and porpoises. Society International. "It is evil, unethical and immoral to use innocents in war because they cannot understand the purpose or the danger. Their resistance is weak, and it is not their conflict." On the other hand, some animals are simply better than machines or humans at the job. And they save lives. "We treat the animals with the utmost respect," says a US Navy spokesman. "We don't send them out to do anything that's dangerous for them." Q & A What do we know? The US Navy first began working with dolphins in 1960, when researchers at the Naval Ordnance Test Station facility at Pt. Mugu, California, sought to improve torpedo design by studying the animals' hydrodynamic efficiency. In 1965, a Navy-trained, Atlantic bottle-nose named Tuffy dived 200 feet to carry tools and messages to crew members in SEALAB II off California's coast. In 1970, the presence of five Navy dolphins discouraged underwater saboteurs from entering the water and blowing up a US Army pier in Vietnam's Cam Ranh Bay. In 1987 and 1988, five dolphins patrolled the waters around the USS La Salle off the coast of Bahrain. What do we not know? Whether the US Navy has ever trained its marine mammals to injure humans or to carry weapons capable of destroying ships. It strongly denies this.KeywordsSt. Petersburg - Saint Petersburg is Russia’s second-largest city after Moscow.