The Shark Dart is triggered by a light tap, so training dolphins to use one is safer than a spear or other weapon which might engage the dolphin’s ramming instincts. The dolphin, of course, has no idea it is being trained to kill, just that it is learning a new game. Training the dolphin to use a device gives far more control, as the dolphins are only dangerous when armed with a live weapon. While dolphins could be trained to attack human swimmers in this way, this creates a potential risk as the dolphin might attack trainers and would be like a loaded gun whenever it shared water with humans. A dolphin can easily outmaneuver a shark and ram its soft underside, causing severe internal damage or killing it. Dolphins are agile and move at high speed, using their bony snout as a weapon. Ramming is dolphins’ natural means of defense, and it is highly effective: even sharks fear them. (No longer sold, the Shark Dart was reinvented years later as the underwater Wasp Knife.) The idea was that this would not kill it but would affect its buoyancy, forcing it to break off the attack without leaving much blood in the water, though in practice the effects could be more gruesome with stories of internal organs being forced out. The idea was to stab the shark, injecting high-pressure gas into its body. The commonest version resembles a slim dagger, with a CO2 cartridge in the handle and a long hollow needle for a blade. The weapon chosen looks like a version of the Shark Dart developed by Farallon for the U.S. The Russian program appears to have copied the U.S. When cetacean expert Doug Cartlidge, visited the Russian facility in Sevastopol to advise on dolphin care after the military program was wound down, he found that some had been trained to attack swimmers wearing a harness fitted with a hollow needle attached to a 2000 psi CO2 cylinder. Michael Greenwood, a former Navy dolphin trainer, described armed attack dolphins with "large hypodermic syringes loaded with pressurized carbon dioxide" which would cause enemy divers to literally blow up. Once the dolphin has tracked you down, it butts you the needle shoots out and pokes you, creating an embolism. Trainers in this exercise used dolphins “to track down enemy divers, outfitting them with a device strapped onto the head that contains a compressed gas needle. In his memoir of life as a Navy SEAL, Brandon Webb recalls training to evade enemy combat dolphins. The Navy says dolphins have never been trained.
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Dolphin Trainers might teach things like how to retrieve, how to do flips, or how to stand up in the water.One of the U.S. Like people, they enjoy new challenges and playing games. Tricks also help keep dolphins from getting bored. For example, certain behaviors (like holding their mouths open) help make them comfortable during exams. Luckily, tricks actually help keep dolphins healthy. So even if you never teach any tricks, you can consider yourself a success if your charges live long, content lives. Though it’s awesome if you get people interested in helping dolphins, ultimately, your biggest job responsibility is to keep the dolphins you work with happy and healthy. This can help encourage them to give to organizations that keep dolphins safe, or to scientific programs that research them. This type of exposure educates the public about dolphins and their importance to the food chain and the natural world. Shows expose people to dolphins in a way they will probably never see in their lives. The purpose of teaching dolphins tricks is more than just to entertain the customers who come to see them. Dolphin Trainers can work for research facilities, aquariums, or resorts that specialize in animal performances.
As a Dolphin Trainer, you teach tricks and special behaviors to dolphins of all varieties. Just as dogs aren’t born knowing how to shake or catch a ball, dolphins don’t naturally learn the skills needed for a Sea World show.