Nature: These Guards Just Love Fish

Drafting dolphins into the Navy causes an uproar

If the Navy has its way, the Trident nuclear-submarine base at Bangor, Wash., will soon be guarded by an uncanny underwater-surveillance system. Vastly more powerful than the Navy's most sophisticated sonar, it can identify real threats to the base, distinguishing them from the normal cacophony of noise in the cold, murky waters of Puget Sound. Developed at a cost of nearly $30 million, it can spot and tag intruding divers, making it possible for them to be intercepted, and can outmaneuver any underwater machine. Yet just about the only maintenance required is 20 lbs. of fish a day and an occasional...

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