However ominously martial Russia’s actions toward Ukraine have become, the next combatants in the crisis will not be the US navy’s fleet of dolphins.



Yes, the navy trains and keeps dolphins, whose powerful innate echolocation abilities help sailors spot suspicious undersea objects that might be mines. The marine mammal enlistees are the aquatic equivalent of the dogs, whose sophisticated sense of smell has aided US soldiers in the hunt for homemade insurgent bombs on land.



But, contrary to reports, the dolphins are not accompanying the USS Donald Cook to the Black Sea.



Russia’s Izvestia newspaper recently asserted that a team of US dolphins had formed a maritime security perimeter around the Cook, a guided missile destroyer the US recently sent to international waters near Ukraine. Last week, Russian fighter jets passed over the warship in a move the Pentagon considered a provocation, but it is unclear what the dolphins would have done to confront Russian airpower.

The question is moot, since, according to the navy, the dolphins were never alongside the Cook in the first place.

“There is no truth to this report,” said Lieutenant Commander Katie Cerezo, a navy spokeswoman.

There will probably be no truth to the next one, either.

The navy’s marine mammal program, based in San Diego, leverages the sonar-like echolocation of bottlenose dolphins to detect submerged objects that might be mines or suspicious swimmers. It also trains California sea lions – the animal kingdom’s marines – to rush to the scene of the potential danger, though usually retrieval missions are left to the larger mammals who serve as the navy’s explosive-ordnance disposal divers. In all, the program trains about 120 dolphins and sea lions.

The sea lions have excellent low-light vision, complementing the dolphins’ echolocation sensing. Both animals possess submerged maneuverability skills and a natural resistance to undersea pressure that humans find difficult to withstand.

The dolphins and sea lions are rarely deployed. In addition to worldwide demonstrations and exhibitions, the vast majority of actual naval dolphin operations are conducted in US harbors and ports, said Ed Budzyna, a spokesman for the naval marine mammal program.

“As far as being deployed to other regions and areas, that doesn’t really happen,” Budzyna said. “I don’t believe they were ever at the Black Sea”

Even if they were, they would make poor scouts. The best trained dolphins cannot distinguish between friendly and adversarial vessels. And a host of laws, including the Marine Mammal Protection Act and the Animal Welfare Act, prevent the navy from using its dolphins as mammalian shields.

Yet the rumors of the US navy’s attack dolphin fleet persist.

“Obviously there’s a market for them, because they appear periodically,” Budzyna said. “It makes a good story. However, it is easy to debunk.”



Still, while dolphins may not serve alongside US warships in an official capacity, occasionally dolphins take it upon themselves to act as unpaid privateers.

Dolphins outrun USS Mississippi submarine. Video: Spencer Ackerman Guardian

During a May 2012 voyage of the fast-attack submarine USS Mississippi alongside the southern Atlantic coast, a crew of dolphins outraced the 377ft boat, hailing it by performing flips worthy of a Sea World show. Sailors aboard the Mississippi said their dolphin honor guard was not an infrequent occurrence, as the dolphins can be fascinated by what they perhaps perceive as an impossibly large cousin.

Such impromptu encounters are the closest the navy comes to subjecting the bottlenose dolphin to the horrors of maritime warfare, in the Black Sea or elsewhere.