A RUSSIAN aquarium is set to house five dolphins which will be military
trained to serve their country.
The Defence Ministry has spent £18,000 on five bottlenose dolphins, three male
and two female.
Bizarrely, the military stated that they needed dolphins with “perfect teeth,
average length and a willingness to ‘display motor activity.’”
In a tender published online in March, the military also said they had to have
“all teeth intact … [and] no mucus from the blowhole”.
The animals are expected to be delivered to Moscow’s Utrish Dolphinarium by
August 1.
The strange request was reported by the state-controlled TASS news agency
before being removed.
However, the tender did not say why the Russian military is trying to recruit
dolphins.
It is thought that they are trying to revamp the Cold War tradition of using
dolphins in combat.
Back in the 1960s, the mammals were used to track mines and patrol waters.
They were even trained to kill enemy frogmen with harpoons.
The clever creatures were able to tell the difference between foreign and
Soviet submarines by the sound of their propellors.
This strange practice was not just used by the Soviets – the US also had their
own dolphin training plan.
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In 2000, Soviet-trained dolphins were sold to Iran.
Trainer Boris Zhurid told BBC News that he could not afford to feed the
animals.
Mr Zhurid’s dolphins were essentially “mercenaries” according to Komsomolskaya
Pravda.
The paper said: “In essence, Iran has bought our former secret weapon from
Ukraine on the cheap.”
According to information from the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society, many
ex-military dolphins have been sold to aquariums around the world.
Rumours that the Russian government were trying to restart their military
dolphin plan have been circulating since 2014.
This was when Ukraine’s top dolphin training facility was captured by the
Russians as part of their annexation of Crimea.
The Russians reportedly captured combat dolphins from the Ukranian military in
2014.
But this claim has not been verified by Kiev.
Vladislav Seleznyov, a Ukrainian military spokesman told the Washington Post
“dolphins are not a military asset.”