Monday, May 27, 2013

AWOL for love

All is not well with our automated post-modern end-of-times militaries.  It appears some of the new troops are abandoning their posts.

Ukrainian Killer Dolphins Deserted to Seek Mates - Expert
RiaNovosti, 12 March 2013 (hat tip: NC)
SEVASTOPOL, March 12 (RIA Novosti) - Three of the Ukrainian navy's “killer” dolphins that swam away from their handlers during training exercises probably left to look for mates, an expert said on Tuesday.
Ukrainian media reported earlier this month that only two of five military-trained dolphins returned to their base in the Crimean port of Sevastopol after a recent exercise.
Ukraine’s Defense Ministry denied the reports, while refusing to confirm the navy makes use of dolphins, despite the frequent appearance in Ukrainian media of photographs of dolphins with military equipment strapped to them...
A military source in Sevastopol told RIA Novosti last year that the Ukrainian navy had restarted training dolphins to attack enemy combat swimmers and detect mines. The killer-dolphins would be trained to attack enemy combat swimmers using special knives or pistols fixed to their heads, the source said.

from WIkipedia

4 comments:

PioneerPreppy said...

I had a dolphin fall in love with me once. Her name was Savannah and she was only four years old. Her trainer told her to kiss me and she wouldn't stop then she began rolling on me and trying to snuggle.

I never felt I was in any danger but her handler was getting really upset by the whole escapade so I explained to Savannah that she was a fish (I know she wasn't but) and I had been hurt before so it wouldn't work.

Finally she let me get out of the water and all was well once again. I assume they found a nice dolphin boy for her soon after that.

She never did write though.

russell1200 said...

Pioneer: Thank you for sharing that with us - tales of aquatic love spurned are so sad.

PioneerPreppy said...

Heh you started the topic :)

I am still surprised at what a big deal the trainer and the center staff made of the whole thing. Apparently it is a fairly common thing for the male dolphins to molest female humans when they do their little high dollar small party dolphin swims but for a female dolphin to get romantic with a human (male or female) is extremely rare. The trainer kept apologizing to me and the center refunded a huge portion of our money (unasked for BTW).

Later after they figured out I wasn't the least bit upset over it and in fact found the whole thing amusing the trainer told me the real danger is the dolphin getting pissy and charging the target of their affections or perceiving another swimmer as a threat. When Savannah began rolling up on me the first thing the trainer did was order everyone out of the enclosed tidal pool area before she even tried getting me away from the dolphin.

russell1200 said...

Pioneer: Because animals cannot resort o mechanical leveraging (outside of their own body structure) they are usually immensely strong compared to humans. I think I made note of what happened when a two fully grown men tried to get a fawn (baby deer) out of a store it had run into: they got their butts kicked: it was stronger than them. Of course if they used mechanical leverage and were trying to club it, it would have been a different story.