U.S. Navy to Replace Mine-Finding Dolphins With Robots By Early 2017

After years of using dolphins to detect mines, the U.S. Navy will be making the switch to mine-detecting robots.

According to the Associated Press, the Navy will begin replacing 24 of its 80 trained dolphins with a 12-foot unmanned torpedo-shaped vehicle.

The program had been operated for years from a training facility in Point Loma, California, according to UT San Diego.

"Some of the mine hunting capability currently performed by our dolphin systems could begin to be replaced by UUVs (Unmanned Underwater Vehicles) as early as 2017," James Fallin, a spokesman for Space and Warfare Systems Command Pacific, which oversees the Navy's National Marine Mammal Program, told the San Diego newspaper.

The San Diego paper reported on Nov. 19 that the Navy planned to retire all of its mine-finding dolphins, which was confirmed by a Navy spokesman.

However, this does not mean that the two dozen dolphins will be relieved of duty, but rather reassigned instead, along with sea lions, and used for port security and retrieving objects at the bottom of the sea.

The program, which the Navy has invested $28 million into, dates back to the 1950s, and the Navy began using dolphins in 1960 after researches began studying their deep-diving physiology in hopes of finding ways to improve the design of torpedoes and other underwater weapons.

Decades later, dolphins were used in Iraq and Bahrain by the Navy in order to patrol for enemy divers and find mines.

The San Diego facility, where the Navy has trained dolphins since 1967, currently has 80 bottle nose dolphins and 40 California sea lions.