From Dogs, Dolphins Help Protect U.S. Troops:
Chickens defy death in cages atop U.S. military Humvees to detect a possible Iraqi chemical attack. Well, some don’t exactly defy death. Most expired after a short stint in the Iraqi desert — flu is suspected — and pigeons have taken their place.Dogs, long used in warfare for scouting, relaying messages and rescuing injured soldiers, are sniffing out bombs in Iraq.
And dolphins Makai and Tacoma are helping to clear mines.
Warfare has long depended on the fowl, the feathered and four-legged, whether they were elephants bearing javelin-throwers on the battlefields of the ancient world, camels spooking Byzantine cavalry horses with their pungent smell, or Spanish Conquistadores’ mastiffs hunting down Peruvian Indians.
Naturally, some people are offended:
Animal rights activists say creatures don’t belong on the battlefield.“Making these birds participate in our wars is not only cruel and unjust, it is a betrayal of the men and women who are serving under you,” Machipongo, Va.-based United Poultry Concerns said in a letter to President Bush.
I could swear that came out of The Onion…