How U.S. Navy Dolphins Are Revolutionizing Mine Detection in the Persian Gulf

Translation result The U.S. military began exploring how to exploit marine animals’ sensing and swimming abilities for military use in the 1960s. Known as the Navy Marine Mammal Program, the effort focused on dolphins, belugas and sea lions. Dolphins received special attention because of their high intelligence, capacity for interaction with humans, fast deep-water swimming, and echolocation. Early training taught dolphins simple tasks such as transporting objects underwater and guiding lost divers. Over time, training grew more complex: dolphins were taught to locate underwater mines, mark them with identification buoys, and perform mine-clearance and reconnaissance missions to detect enemy divers and vessels.

The dolphin units first saw combat in 1965 during the Vietnam War, when five dolphins conducted maritime surveillance around Cam Ranh Bay, a U.S. staging area. Later, during the protracted Iran–Iraq War that began in 1980, attacks on nearby tankers prompted the U.S. Navy to deploy six dolphins in 1986 to patrol Bahrain’s port in the Persian Gulf, escort merchant ships and clear mines. Encouraged by those operational successes, the Navy expanded its dolphin force to more than 100 animals in the 1980s, then sharply cut the program after the Cold War ended. The former Soviet Union also operated dolphin units; Russia reportedly inherited that program and now uses dolphins to patrol naval bases in the Black Sea.

With Iran recently laying mines and moving to blockade waters around the Strait of Hormuz, dolphin units have returned to the spotlight in international coverage. To date, underwater drones and unmanned systems have led mine-clearing efforts in the strait, but future combined operations that pair dolphins with mine-countermeasure ships and drones are possible. During the Korean War, the allied landing at Wonsan was delayed more than ten days by North Korean mines; while that operation stalled, advancing Chinese forces pushed south and the allies failed to retake the area. To avoid repeating that outcome in a future crisis on the Korean Peninsula, our armed forces must develop refined, integrated mine-countermeasure capabilities comparable to those fielded by the U.S. military.