New museum exhibit explores the story of Naval dolphins and sea lions

And I thought The Incredible Mr. Limpet was just a movie.

Kitsapsun reports the U.S. Naval Undersea Warfare Museum-Keyport opened its doors on Friday to a new exhibit that highlights a little-known and little-discussed part of naval history.

In 1963, the Navy created the Marine Mammal Program "to see if animals could perform tasks difficult or dangerous to human divers," according to the exhibit. Since then, "marine mammals have performed these missions with better accuracy, greater speed and safety, and lower costs than human divers of undersea vehicles."

Navy dolphins and sealions undertake three types of missions: mine detection, intruder defense and object recovery. 

"Marine mammals do these jobs because human divers and sonar technology can't do them better," said museum curator Mary Ryan. "Marine mammals can do these jobs extremely well." 

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