Pentagon develops brain implants to turn sharks into military spies

The Independent newspaper reports:

"Military scientists in the United States are developing a way of manipulating sharks by remote control to turn them into underwater spies or weapons.(..) The neural implants consist of electrodes buried in the fish's brain which can then be triggered by remote control to stimulate specific areas of the animal's central nervous system. (..) Scientists at Boston University have already developed brain implants that can influence the movements of dogfish - members of the shark family - by "steering" them with a phantom odour.(..) The electrodes are attached to the region of the dogfish brain associated with scent detection. When the stimulus is to the right side of the olfactory centre the fish turn right, when it is left, the fish swim left. The stronger the signal, the more sharply it turns."

Read the full article here and The New Scientist source article here

Disturbing stuff.. In an earlier article in June 2004 Jelle Atema, a marine biologist funded by the US Defense Department had this to say :

"'There are some who will worry that, once researchers gain control over sharks, they will move on to humans'. But Atema said he doesn't believe 'anyone is even remotely thinking that way. That's what we have a society for, to prevent these excesses.'

He prefers another comparison.

'We have used dogs for thousands of years around the world to help us smell, pigeons to carry messages, etc.,' he said.

'To me, it's not that different' to direct a shark by remote control."

But surely in the sniffer dog - dog handler comparison there is some kind of symbiotic relationship, the dog is gaining something though its proximity to a human and its 'work' (if it's really perceived as work by animals). The animals gain from being fed and cared for, whilst humans benefit with the animal's natural instincts and keener senses. There has to be an emotional relationship between human and animal, otherwise it couldn't function. Carrier pigeons have the freedom not to return home to roost. Remote-controlled sharks have no free will, as they respond automatically to someone pressing buttons on a remote. It's really the worst type of cowardice to control a creature in such a crude way, when we know we could never achieve such results through other means. I mean, what could be wilder than a shark?

There's something highly disturbing in such an unnatural and unbalanced relationship by a land mammal over a fish which lives in water, especially to be used within the war machine.

Urghh.. it makes my skin crawl.

Which brings me to Derrick Jensen, who can state the pure, ugly truth so much more poetically than I can :

"We pretend that animals have no pain, and that we have no ethical responsibility towards them. (..) We pretend that animals are resources to be conserved or consumed, when, in reality, they have purposes entirely independent of us. It is wrong to make believe that people are nothing more than 'Human Resources' to be efficiently utilized, when they too have independent existences and preferences. And it is wrong to make believe that animals are not sentient, that they do not form social communities in which members nurture, love, sustain, and grieve for each other, that they do not manifest ethical behavior."
A Language Older Than Words