Dolphin assassins menace Gulf of Mexico

The Guardian "reports:"

Flipper the firing dolphin let loose by Katrina: "It may be the oddest tale to emerge from the aftermath of Hurricane Katrina. Armed dolphins, trained by the US military to shoot terrorists and pinpoint spies underwater, may be missing in the Gulf of Mexico.

Experts who have studied the US navy's cetacean training exercises claim the 36 mammals could be carrying 'toxic dart' guns. Divers and surfers risk attack, they claim, from a species considered to be among the planet's smartest. The US navy admits it has been training dolphins for military purposes, but has refused to confirm that any are missing."

Odd indeed. In fact, it sounds like monkey fishing to us. The mammals could be carrying tactical nuclear weapons, too, and that's almost as unlikely as "toxic dart" guns.

The Register is also skeptical of the story in The Guardian, pointing out that the source cited, one Leo Sheridan, has a bit of a checkered history:

"Worrying to be sure. We find, however, that Sheridan has made sport of gullible reporters in the past. In 2003, he was confident that he and a team of divers he advised had located the site where English aviator Amy Johnson died, after her plane went into the sea off Kent in 1941. The Guardian carried that item too. Not surprisingly, there has been little news about Johnson's plane since the announcement.

He also appears to have been confident, back in 1998, that a group of US Navy killer dolphins had come to grief off the French Mediterranean coast when they got loose and their handlers detonated a 'radio-controlled explosion of their signal collars, so that no one could find out their missions.' (Find out their missions?)"

Well, of course, everyone knows dolphins can't keep a secret. So naturally they had to be killed.

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