"Since 1959, the U.S. Navy has trained dolphins and sea lions as teammates for our Sailors and Marines to help guard against similar threats underwater,"according to the US Navy Marine Mammal program.
"Dolphins naturally possess the most sophisticated sonar known to science," the program's website says. "Mines and other potentially dangerous objects on the ocean floor that are difficult to detect with electronic sonar, especially in coastal shallows or cluttered harbors, are easily found by the dolphins."