Soviet’s torpedo dolphins now target tourists for food

“Yasha eats a lot of fish all year around,” said marine biologist Aleksander Zaniny. “It’s a good thing he earns money for it in the summer.” Zaniny heads the Sudak Dolphinarium, a research centre that he founded in 1966. It is the largest of three such facilities on Ukraine’s Crimean Black Sea coast.

Soviet researchers focused on training marine mammals to carry objects to underwater targets. Equipped with nature’s most efficient sonar and highly intelligent, a warhead-armed dolphin is, theoretically, an ideal biological torpedo.

“But not practically,” said marine biologist Anatoliy Bezushko. “Kamikaze dolphins work in movies but not in real life.” Dolphins don’t like to swim in the murky, shallow water usually used as a warship harbour, researchers found.

But Sudak-trained animals working for military and civilian authorities have over the years hunted down sunken ships, located oil pipeline breaks and even saved downed airmen. “They’re better at search and rescue,” Zaniny said. “We offer a pipeline monitoring service today.”

Dolphins were not drafted into the Soviet Navy without problems. Initially, half the captured dolphins died, Zaniny recalls. “We installed filters and pumps,” he said. “We developed vaccines…but even today, we still buy all of our dolphins’ medicine at the pharmacy.”

Today, 98 per cent of Ukraine’s dolphins captured in the wild survive in captivity. They reproduce enthusiastically, which is how Yasha came into the world in 1989. The upheavals of the 1990s changed not just world politics, but also Yasha’s ultimate career path.

Military dolphin training stopped in 1987 because of reduced Defence budgets. In 1991, Ukraine became an independent country but suffered hyper-inflation. Workers at government institutions like the Sudak Dolphinarium went without salaries but the dolphins kept on needing fish to eat. So Yasha was retired as a naval secret weapon and started entertaining tourists for cash.

The Sudak Dolphinarium had run dolphin shows since the 1970s as a convenient way to keep the dolphins trained. But now that the Cold War is over, the Sudak Dolphinarium charges visitors about a dollar a head to watch Yasha go through his paces.

Zaniny estimates his centre costs $ 250,000 annually to operate, scientists and dolphins included. Four shows daily during the summer (six on weekends) cover 30 per cent of costs, while the government provides another quarter. “The rest, we make up as we can,” Zaniny said. “We have a good income from souvenirs and photos.”

Like all proper artists, Sudak’s performers display personality quirks. Yasha, an 11-year-old male, is the Dolphinarium’s star. He is also, frankly, a big ham, ready to cut in front of fellow dolphin, balance the beach ball on his nose without being asked or even horn in on the seal lion act. Yasha saves his best efforts for audiences and, like any big star, is pretty lazy during practice.

“If he’s not in the mood, forget it,” said trainer Nadezhdafrolova. “Even fish won’t get his attention.” Yashka, Yasha’s four-year-old mate, tries harder than Yasha but loses her cool if she makes a mistake in her routine, Frolova said.

Now the couple is on winter vacation. They run through their routine twice a day for 12 kilos of mackerel, take part in behaviour experiments, but since there are no crowds, mostly they swim around and build up the blubber. Will the summer show go on?

“We have no choice,” Frolova said. “If our dolphins aren’t ready for the tourists, it’s us humans that won’t have anything to eat.”