UUV's v Trained Marine Animals

[Feros Ferio]

Recently, I was informed by an aquaintance that they had observed the US Navy doing a training op in conjuction with the Canadian Navy in and around the harbour in Victoria, BC, with mine hunting dolphins. While this is unremarkable in terms of the cooperation, it did give me pause for a moment in light of recent technological innovations. At present, I'm sure dolphins and/or sea lions, if well trained, are superior to UUV's at a number of naval defence activities. But for how long? I don't know all that much about sea lions, but I do know that dolphins are incredibly intelligent.

So my question is, do you think that highly trained animals will become obsolete sooner rather than later due to advances in UUV's and associated tech? Or could advances in training and/or control lead to the increased relevance of "animal operatives"?

In my opinion, this program is still around because trained marine animals have many benefits over UUVs at present. They do not rely on batteries. They are inexpensive to procure. Also, while the US Navy has claimed it has not, and will not weaponize these animals, it is within the realm of possibility. While I do not advocate this, the tactical possibilities are incredibly interesting to think about. In sum, I believe this will not become an obsolete program any time soon. In fact, while UUV's will increase in relevance, I predict trained animal operatives could play a limited but increasingly relevant role as well in future conflicts.

Your thoughts?

 

[regstrup]

Dolphins may be inexpensive to procure , but are very expensive to train. So I think, that within a short timeperiode UUV will take over more and more from trained sea animals.

But I do also think, that the USN will keep the trained sea animals and they will come back in focus, if and when it will be possible to combine technology and sea animals, so communication with the animals will make training easier, less expensive and to tell them, what task to do.