The Militarization of Our Friend Flipper

My friend Jack Mingo called and left this eerie message on my machine: “Be careful what you joke about, Alice. Sometimes these jokes turn into reality.”

He was referring to a conversation we had some weeks back about the Marine Mammal Center, where whales get saved. At the mention of the center’s name, I had casually remarked, “Oh, I just love a mammal in uniform.”

So Jack called to make sure I had seen the newspaper story headlined, “Navy Denies Abusing Dolphins but Says Two Died in Spy Program.” The story described a secret Navy program to train marine mammals to detect underwater threats. It reported the coincidental death of Skippy, a dolphin who had died of pneumonia while serving his country in the Persian Gulf, and the unexpected death of another, as-yet-unnamed dolphin. The story continued, “Five other dolphins remained on duty in the gulf until May, officials said.”

Were we actually able to understand the language of dolphins, I suppose we could imagine the remaining sailors saying things like, “Boy, am I getting sick of falafel and lamb kebabs.”

“You can say that again, Flipper. Soon as I get Stateside, I’m going to have me the biggest salmon steak I can sink my teeth into.”

But as Jack reminds me, this is no joke. And I have to eat my words. The truth is, I don’t love a mammal in uniform. I don’t even love a mammal in a hoop act. I like to think of dolphins in their natural habitat.

The deaths of Skippy and the unidentified dolphin are not the only rumors of dolphins caught between the devil and the deep blue sea. The Seattle Post-Intelligencer reported other deaths and injuries and quoted “anonymous sources” as saying that dolphins and sea lions were part of a training program that included instruction in “how to attack and kill divers.” A Navy spokesman, Lt. Ken Ross, is quoted as vehemently denying the charges. “We have never trained dolphins to kill,” he said.

I’m sure the woman who was recently the victim of an unprecedented attack by a sea lion on a San Francisco beach will want to see that sea lion’s discharge papers.

I am sure we will all sleep less easily tonight in a world in which Rambo the Killer Dolphin may be roaming our seas suffering from post-traumatic stress syndrome.

I am also sure that this whole business of dolphin abuse will raise the hackles of animal lovers . . . and mammals everywhere. There will be questions about what the Navy is doing to our fine finned friends. Where are they recruiting these dolphins? How are they getting them to serve? What becomes of the peace-loving marine mammal who gets branded “chicken of the sea”?

The article says the Navy has 115 dolphins, sea lions, beluga whales and other marine mammals in the program. The training continues despite periodic protests from animal rights groups objecting to “the use of mammals for military purposes.”

But people seem numb to what happens to our own species. Each day we read about violent acts committed by one human being against another. Almost every investigative reporter has turned in something fishy about the use of human spies. There are frequent reports of people suffering abuse in military training programs. War and its preparation are unhealthy for dolphins and other living things. Perhaps we need a People Are Mammals, Too campaign.

After the recent uproar about some whales who were stuck in the ice, my friend Roger Rapaport commented, “If you want to see gun control, you’ll have to shoot a whale.”

But he’d better watch his words because, as I have learned, jokes have a way of coming true. Perhaps my joke should have been, “I just love a mammal who’s into disarmament.”