Government Plan to Use Dolphins to Find Nessie
Posted by: Craig Woolheater on January 14th, 2006
Previously reported here on Cryptomundo was the story of documents uncovered by a Freedom of Information Act to protect the Loch Ness Monster. The Sunday Times of Scotland has now released previously classified documents that show that officials in Margaret Thatcher’s regime had planned to import two bottle-nosed dolphins from America to search Loch Ness for the Monster in 1979.
Adrian Shine was quoted in the article that he believed that the plan was the idea of Robert Rines of the Academy of Applied Science.
The Academy of Applied Science in New Hampshire confirmed that dolphins were being trained with mini cameras and strobe lights that would have been activated if they encountered any large objects.
Would dolphins survive in the peat-stained freshwater of Loch Ness? The Scottish Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals was opposed to the plan. Perhaps that was their reasoning, that the dolphins would be doomed…
Co-founder of Cryptomundo in 2005.
I have appeared in or contributed to the following TV programs, documentaries and films:
OLN's Mysterious Encounters: "Caddo Critter", Southern Fried Bigfoot, Travel Channel's Weird Travels: "Bigfoot", History Channel's MonsterQuest: "Swamp Stalker", The Wild Man of the Navidad, Destination America's Monsters and Mysteries in America: Texas Terror - Lake Worth Monster, Animal Planet's Finding Bigfoot: Return to Boggy Creek and Beast of the Bayou.
One question I’ve always had concerning such an endeavor: How do you train a dolphin to know to search something like that out?
well, first of all I’d like to extend my deepest gratitude to cryptomundo and the people behind this, hands down to you guys . . . with regards to this news, i think its a wise thing to do, using dolphins which we can consider as intelligent as we are and lives in the same environment to that of nessie as the “locators” of the long-sought after nessie…..
same question goes to that of Lee Murphy, How guys?
In response to Lee Murphy, dolphins have been trained to do search and rescue missions, as well as trained to find bombs. I suppose given enough time and money, trainers could work on having dolphins conduct generalized sweeps to locate any large animal they might encounter. After all, the trainee might be smarter than the trainer. But death seems to be a factor in these scenarios too.
For example, as far as Adrian Shine’s comment, it is a well-known piece of history that a project of Robert Rines’ Academy of Applied Sciences was to train dolphins with cameras on their backs to search the Loch. But it never took place due to one of the dolphins dying in cold-water tests in Boston, in 1979.
BTW, a related comment was given in the Critical Eye program in 2002, by Ben Radford: “And at one point, they even strapped cameras on the backs of dolphins and sent them from one end of the loch to the other, looking for the monster.” But this never took place, as these new documents merely go to reinforce.
As an aside, it is virtually impossible to judge a dolphin’s intelligence on any kind of scale we would recognize because they are not human and their view of the world is not associated with hands, building things to keep out of the cold, etc. So we don’t know exactly how intelligent they are and likely, since there are no dolphin surgeons, they aren’t as intelligent as popular culture would lead us to believe. But seriously, is there a more fun finny friend in the sea?
as stated in comment number 3 the largest factor here is not would the activists have a problem with the dolphins in fresh water because yes dolphins can and will survive in fresh water for short periods of time and brackish water indefinitely (this is also a consideration based on the belief of underground cavern systems allowing salt water to the loch and salt water will settle to the bottom of the loch rather then rise to the top.) the problem here is the icy tempatures of the loch dolphins though being equiped with blubber as are all marine mammals are very suseptable to long exposures to frigid waters look to thier natural hutting and breeding grounds for that information. from the get go this was a bad idea with many casualties to be expected be it from the water tepature the water mixture or nessie many dolphins would have parrished in this cause. i believe this to be the reason the project never got out of the planning stage.
Orca’s have a higher tolerance for cold then dolphins. That seems like a more plausidble option. Granted they would probably kill any Nessie they did find.