Dolphins vs. Pirates

China's official news agency, Xinhua, is claiming that thousands of dolphins spontaneously decided to protect a fleet of Chinese merchant ships that were being attacked by Somali pirates:
The Chinese merchant ships escorted by a China’s fleet sailed on the Gulf of Aden when they met some suspected pirate ships. Thousands of dolphins suddenly leaped out of water between pirates and merchants when the pirate ships headed for the China’s. The suspected pirates ships stopped and then turned away. The pirates could only lament their littleness befor the vast number of dolphins. The spectacular scene continued for a while.

The NY Times is skeptical, though it concedes that the US military has been training dolphins for years, so maybe the Chinese have perfected the use of dolphins as an anti-piracy force.

Animals Military

Posted on Thu Apr 16, 2009


Comments

Chinese merchant ships escorted by China's fleet. So the pirates were undeterred by China's fleet, but spooked by the dolphins.
Maybe they were US Navy dolphins trained to plant mines on the hulls of enemy ships. They call them Flipper, Flipper, faster than liiiiightning,,,,,
Posted by Canadarm  on  Thu Apr 16, 2009  at  05:17 PM
Umm, righttttt, that photo is from the Pirates perspective... A little bit of photoshopping?

Although I'm sure this strikes nascent fear into every red-blooded male: [they could only] "lament their littleness" I know it does for me.
Posted by Joel B1  on  Fri Apr 17, 2009  at  02:22 AM
"The NY Times is skeptical, though it concedes that the US military has been training dolphins for years, so maybe the Chinese have perfected the use of dolphins as an anti-piracy force."

The NY Times definition of 'skeptical' is obviously a lot less stringent than mine 😛.

Maybe they were being telepathically motivated from beyond the grave by Chairman Mao?
Posted by JDK  on  Mon Apr 20, 2009  at  04:33 PM
It's very possible the dolphins were panicked by military active sonar in use re the piracy. Many cetaceans have been dying from the bends due to that in recent years. Active sonar is incredibly loud under water, the dolphins and whales get disoriented, and surface too fast. There's a huge amount of forensic evidence showing this now, but the navies are too stupid and evil to budge on the issue.
Posted by wial  on  Tue May 19, 2009  at  06:40 PM
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