They've become perhaps some of those most popular troops in the war, making our modern technology look like children's toys in their search for anti-ship mines near the port of Umm Qasr and other locations.

Dolphins, the sleek, friendly and loveable torpedoes of the seas, have been deployed for war, using their unrivalled underwater sonar abilities and amazing intelligence to locate mines in cluttered shallow-water environments where military electronic hardware is rendered virtually useless.

"Dolphins have the best sonar on this planet… the Navy does not have any technological sonar that can find buried mines except for their dolphin system," says Whitlow Au, a student of marine bioacoustics at the University of Hawaii's Marine Mammal Research Program in Kailua. "They can not only find objects like mines that may or may not be buried into the seabed, but they can distinguish them from clutter such as coral rock, and man-made debris."

When detecting a potential mine, the animals notify their military handlers, who decide whether to send them back with an acoustic transponder. The transponders are then carefully dropped nearby, where human divers locate and destroy the munitions.

But is Flipper trustworthy?  Statistics show he is.  After 30 years and many hundreds of thousands of instances of releasing dolphins to locate dummy mines in the sea, only seven animals have failed to return to their handlers.

Recently, however, one dolphin deployed by an Australian didn't come back, only to be found days later in the same spot where it was released.

In any case, people say dolphins are as reliable as drug-sniffing dogs, and for every rare case of "high-finning" it (as opposed to high-tailing ... bad joke), the many combined successful cases easily overshadow them.

Welsh Abuzz Over Monster Sighting
by IcWales
S: IcWales (3-13-03)

It makes you wonder what's in the beer.

The lunchtime customers at the small waterfront pub had never seen anything like it.

They were enjoying a quiet drink when suddenly they saw a mysterious serpent-like creature in the water outside.  It was dark and snake-like and roughly the length of four to five cars.  If it was Nessie she was a long way from home, as the mysterious creature of the deep was spotted in the Milford Haven waterway, just yards away from the busy Irish ferry terminal.

Now the sighting has become the talk of Pembroke Dock and the pub's landlord is offering a £150 reward to anyone who can catch the monster alive.

David Crewe of the historic Ship-wright pub, said, "There was definitely something out there.

"It could be anything. I just want to find out what it is."

The mysterious creature was spotted first by barmaid Lesley John in the deep channel of the waterway, close to where Irish ferry boats turn around before heading for Pembroke Dock ferry terminal.

"I was pulling a pint for one of the lads and I was watching the ferry, you know how it leaves a white trail as it goes?  "Then I saw what looked like a big black fin. I carried on pulling the pint and it was still there. I said to the lads `What the hell is that?' "

The customers went outside to investigate and also saw something strange.

"From a distance it appeared to have a snake-like head," said Peter Thomas. "And you could see a commotion in the water, a lot of splashing, about 10 metres away.

"It was a rather odd thing. I do a lot of boating on the waterway and I have never seen anything like that. It was something really strange. But you can only say what you saw."

By the time Mr Crewe himself was alerted, it had almost disappeared. "All I saw was a tail disappearing into the water," he said.

Afterwards the pub rang the local radio station, Radio Pembrokeshire, which aired news of the sighting to the county.  It was also picked up by the local paper the Western Telegraph, which splashed it over half-a-page complete with picture.

Pembroke Dock's long time county councillor Viv Hay said it was now the talk of the town.

"I haven't seen the Pembroke Dock Loch Ness monster at all but a lot of people are talking about it," he said. "I just wonder what they serve there.  I suppose it was just a fleeting visit, but if it stopped here long enough it could become a tourist attraction."

Radio Pembrokeshire managing director Keri Jones said the station had been inundated with phone calls from listeners offering theories about what had been seen and even suggesting names for the monster.  And although there have been no other reported sightings, he said, "They really believe what they thought they saw."

There have been many sightings of so called sea monsters around the coast of Britain, as well as the renowned monster of Loch Ness.  One of the most dramatic is regularly seen off the coast of Cornwall, which along with Devon is a particularly fertile area for sea monsters.  The legendary Morgawr, as it is now known, was first sighted in 1975 and has been described as a humped creature with stubby horns and bristles.

In the same year a sea monster about 10ft long was seen on Bar-mouth Beach in North Wales, while a 30ft to 40ft monster has also been spotted at Newquay.  There have also been alleged sightings of sea beasts off North Yorkshire, Lincolnshire and the Norfolk and Suffolk coasts.

David Saunders, a naturalist for more than 40 years and former director of the Dyfed Wildlife Trust, said he had never heard of such a sighting around the Pembrokeshire coast before.

"The nearest thing to this would be a whale or dolphin, but it does not appear to be any of these," he said.  "It could have been two things separated by 10 metres."  He said that over the years there had been reports of similar creatures throughout the world, and often by reputed sources such as Royal Navy ships, but such sightings were usually made out at sea.

But he said that despite all the sightings, no-one had ever come up with any real proof that these mysterious creatures actually existed.

Chimps With No Human Contact
by Jonathan Robison
S: AnimalPlanet.com (3-21-03)

In a remote central African rainforest a fascinating discovery was made; chimpanzees who possibly have never seen humans before.

A question quickly emerges; "How could anyone possibly know whether they've seen humans or not?"  As well all know, chimps can't talk.

Consider this.  When approached in the wild, chimpanzees typically run and hide, which indicates a fear of humans.  For chimpanzees to become comfortable with humans can often take years, according to researchers.

Rather then fleeing, however, these "Naive Chimpanzees" were instead curious about researchers Dave Morgan and Crickette Sanz, said the report in International Journal of Primatology.  In fact, the two humans were often accepted upon first contact.

"Such an overwhelmingly curious response to the arrival of researchers had never been reported from another chimpanzee study site," said Sanz in a Washington University in St. Louis press release.

As a result, the Guoalougo Triangle, where they were discovered, was recently placed at the top of the Wildlife Conservation Society's list of priority conservation projects because of these naïve encounters, said Morgan in the release.

"Dave and Crickette's work on this chimpanzee population is simply amazing," said renowned primatologist Robert W. Sussman, Ph.D., a professor of anthropology at Washington University and Sanz's doctoral advisor. "There is no doubt in my mind that this research will lead to a much better understanding of chimpanzee ecology and behavior, and will set the stage for data collection for years to come."

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