Homeland Security Gets Back to Nature

This week, trainees from the U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program collaborated with the San Francisco Police Department to better protect California's shorelines from terrorist threats. But these aren't your usual specially-trained members of the armed forces. Instead, they're dolphins and sea lions. Seriously.

Chosen for their amazing intelligence, memory, detection capability and lightning-quick mobility, dolphins and sea lions are a great fit for underwater homeland security initiatives. Members of the program are trained to identify mines, improvised explosive devices and enemy divers.

See a photo slideshow of the exercise here.