HHIssues

Note: The part where it talks about the Russian Dolphins helping the deaf children in this article shown below is written under the title, "DOLPHINS AS DOCTORS".

Soviet navy dolphins swim with kids Former `weapons' become tools to heal, not harm.

Old dolphins are learning new tricks in the former Soviet Union.

By Dana Lewis , NBC NEWS SEVASTOPOL,

Ukraine — During the Cold War, they were called the "Red Dolphins," trained by the Soviet navy as underwater weapons. Today, at a former secret navy base in Ukraine, these lively sea creatures perform tricks for money and are put to work healing children.

TWO OF the former Red Dolphins, Radi and Grand, are part of a daily show at Sevastopol's dolphinarium. They jump through hoops and speed underwater to retrieve rings and balls their trainers toss out to them as children in the audience applaud. But this is no simple dolphin show.

Most of the trainers admit to being part of the former Soviet navy, just like Radi and Grand.

"The arms race existed not only in space but underwater," says former Soviet army officer Victor Lysenko, who today runs the dolphin therapy program. More than 20 dolphins are kept in a half dozen pens at the top-secret Sevastopol navy base in the Crimea in Ukraine, where Ukraine's Black Sea naval fleet is housed, and where NBC News was recently the first U.S. television network to be allowed access to the home of the Red Dolphins.

The dolphins were trained to seek out underwater mines and, when fitted with special gear, could even plant explosives on warships, and attack enemy divers.

In the military, the dolphins were trained "accordingly," says Lysenko. "There were dolphin saboteurs, dolphin sappers, dolphin mine-layers.

"The Ukraine navy's Capt. Valery Kushev, the overall head of the dolphin program, is uncomfortable answering specific questions about the secrets of the Red Dolphin training facility but admits that even today, the dolphins are taught to identify ammunition still lying on the bottom of the Black Sea from World War II.

"We use them to search for the ammo. This is necessary, and a very acute problem for the country's safety," Kushev said, referring to incidents of fishermen being injured by unexploded bombs and underwater mines left over from the war.

But after the collapse of the former Soviet Union, funding for the dolphin program dried up. Kushev says some dolphins starved to death in their pens at the naval base. In order to save the dolphins, the navy had to go into business.

DOLPHINS AS DOCTORS

In addition to performing aquatic shows, researchers started exploring dolphins' abilities to work with children.

Maj. Lysenko says dolphins use high frequency sound waves like those of a submarine to identify underwater objects, and that their unique sonar may have a "healing effect" on some deaf children.

As an example, Lysenko asks seven children with hearing disabilities to stand with their backs to the dolphin pool. A trainer coaxes the dolphins to produce loud sonar noise — a cross between high pitched clicking and singing. Six out of seven of the children raise their hands indicating they hear the sounds.

"I can hear the dolphin's voice! I hear it!" 11-year-old Katya shouts excitedly. And the more the children interact with the dolphins, says Lysenko, the better they hear the sounds.

"I know for sure their hearing gets stimulated," he says. "The kids are interested and start to improve the perception of sound and pay more attention to sounds."

The program's research chief, Igor Zagorchenko, a former Soviet navy medical officer, claims high frequency sounds not only reach the deaf but stimulate part of the brain and mildly improve hearing in 70 percent of children tested.

For the children, "the physical transmission through the nerve system has improved, but not dramatically. Maximum improvement was achieved in sound analyzing, on the level of brain cells that bring sound to the brain," says Zagorchenko.

The Red Dolphin experts don't claim they will restore hearing for the deaf, but they maintain there is small improvement in hearing. So far, no outside medical experts have examined the research.

If there is any doubt in what the program does to help children, there is none when it comes to how it's saved the dolphins. Radi and Grand use the same talents learned in military training to now push paint brushes onto canvas during dolphin shows. The Red Dolphins are now thriving, becoming tools to heal not harm. Their water color art is auctioned off — sometimes for hundreds of dollars.

** HHIssues **