US Navy to deploy combat dolphins for Black Sea military drills – report

Published time: April 21, 2014 20:21 

Edited time: April 22, 2014 10:33

American combat dolphins and sea lions will undergo a lengthy plane flight in order to participate in NATO war games in the Black Sea, a spokesman for the US Navy's marine mammals program reportedly said.

Twenty dolphins and ten sea lions will take part in the drills, which will last between one and two weeks, spokesman Tom LaPuzza said, as cited by Izvestia newspaper.

The war games are one of eight joint NATO-Ukrainian military exercises scheduled to take place this year.

During their Black Sea stay, the US dolphins will test a new anti-radar system, designed to disorientate enemy sonars. Both sea lions and dolphins will look for mines and military divers, LaPuzza said.

According to the spokesman, the exercises will be held within the framework of the marine mammals training program, which includes the protection of ships and harbors, as well as mine detection by animals.

New armor for dolphins, developed at a specialized research center at the University of Hawaii, will also be put to the test in the Black Sea, he added.

The marine mammals will be transferred from their base in San Diego, California to the Black Sea via a plane equipped with a special bath, the spokesman told the paper.

read more

Attack of the demon shrimp: the species threatens to wreak havoc in British waters

An influx of aggressive demon shrimp is threatening to wipe out native species in British rivers and lakes - and is costing the British economy billions of pounds.

Demon shrimp, which originate from the region around the Black Sea and Caspian Sea, are disrupting the food chain in British waters and experts claim they pose a major bio-hazard.

And safeguarding the country against the problem is contributing to the cost of Invasive Non-Native Species (INNS) to the British economy, which is estimated at a total of approximately £1.7 billion a year.

Dr Alex Ford, a marine scientist from the University of Portsmouth, said that some of Britain’s native shrimp are in danger of being completely eradicated.

Read on

A Fast Fish With a Huge Impact

Sep. 23, 2013 — Globalization is breaking down barriers -- also for plants and animals on the lookout for new homes. Rivers are also changing, in particular through the introduction of non-native species, often brought in by passing ships. In the Danube River, scientists have been observing a fish species conquering a new habitat and creating a totally new ecosystem in the process.

Recent decades have seen massive changes to many river systems. To improve passage for ships, humans have been straightening, deepening, and reinforcing river banks and altered the natural flow regime. Water temperatures are also rising as a result of climate change. All of which provides perfect conditions for the round goby, a fish traditionally found in the lower stretches of the Danube and along the coasts of the Black Sea. Today, however, round goby has expanded its distribution range significantly and can now be found in the headwater of the Danube as well as in the Rhine, the Baltic Sea and the Laurentian Great Lakes in North America.

Scientists at the Technische Universität München (TUM) have teamed up with the Bavarian State Collection of Zoology (ZSM) to investigate the strategies the round goby uses to conquer new stretches of river and the impact on the ecosystem and existing food webs. This is the first comprehensive study of this nature has been carried out.

Continued

Three Ukrainian Killer Attack Dolphins Are On The Loose In The Black Sea

Date: Mar 13, 2013 2:26 AM

The Ukrainian military has apparently lost three of its trained military attack dolphins in the Black Sea, RIA Novosti reports. Supposedly, the dolphins swam away from their handlers during training exercises earlier this month, though Ukraine's Defence Ministry denied the reports. The dolphins may have swum off to mate with wild dolphins, former soviet naval officer Yury Plyachenko told RIA Novosti. He said that when this has happened in the past, they've come back in about a week. Supposedly, though the Ukraine Defence Ministry denies it, they restarted the military marine mammal program last year. The dolphins are trained to find underwater mines (which has been done in other military programs including Russia and the U.S.) but in the Ukraine, they are supposedly also trained to kill enemy divers with knives and pistols attached to their heads, according to RIA Novosti. Some could also be trained to place explosive devices on enemy ships. There's no evidence t hat the dolphins were armed when they escaped their handlers.

http://www.businessinsider.com/three-ukrainian-killer-attack-dolphins-escaped-2013-3