Jan. 28 (UPI) -- Science Applications International Corp. has received a one-year, $13.9 million contract to provide animal care, training and maintenance of marine mammals in the Navy Marine Mammal Program, the Pentagon announced.
The Navy Marine Mammal Program, which began in 1959 and has been headquarted at Point Loma in San Diego since the 1960s, trains bottlenose dolphins and California sea lions to detect, locate and recover objects in water -- particularly mines and other potentially dangerous objects that are difficult to detect with electronic sonar.