*** Sea Lion Rescue Team ***

From:	 Waves Consulting [sealion@rescueteam.com]
Sent:	 November 4, 1999 13:33
To:	 sarinfo@sfu.ca
Subject: Sea Lion Rescue Team

Dear Sir/Madam:
When working in nature’s aquatic environment, the border between success and
complete disaster is often a slim line. Nature can simply be stronger than
man and technology. Despite our determination, courage and modern
technology, it always is nature which rules man. Though technology may
assist us, it is nature that will set our limitations. The proposal that you
are about to read is aimed at using nature to help us in our goals and
objectives.  The concept is bold, and for some unbelievable, but is truly
attainable.

Sincerely,


Christopher Porter
Founder, Basic Instinct
e-mail: sealion@rescueteam.com
fax: (01) 520 223 2516
tel:  (39) 0347 4486973


And for those who do not believe...

SEA LIONS MAKE HISTORY
(South Carolina’s Post and Courier, April 23rd, 1998)

Sea lions made history today. Wednesday, two Navy California sea lions
(Zalophus californianus), trained for underwater explosive recovery,
searched instead for the body of a man feared drowned in March while fishing
in a Pickens County lake.

The sea lion’s 50 dive effort through an underwater forest in Lake Jocassee
was the first time the Navy used an animal to try to recover a body.

Zak, a 127 kg (280 pound), 12-year old male, traveled with a companion to
the site. There he made 65 dives, including 50 actual search dives, in a
single day. He had no trouble with the jungle-like lake bottom, 78m (260
feet) down amid an uncut forest of 18.3m (60ft) high pine trees. A skin
diver could go down as far as 40m (130 feet), and have about three minutes
to search before being forced to return to the surface. The diver would have
to wait 12 hours before going back down. The sea lion could dive twice as
deep, all day long.

It’s hard to grasp the difficulty of the job, said Dave Nelson, a civilian
technical advisor with the sea lion program. Somebody compared it to
parachuting into a forest at night in a fog, and starting a search without a
light.

Zak wore a camera for one dive, showing him weaving back and forth through
tree limbs, until the grabber holding the camera got hung up. Zak returned
immediately to the surface. A skin diver then fetched the camera from 40m
(130 ft), and had to rely on a rope to find his way back.

Even though the sea lion did not locate the body, he did demonstrate the
effectiveness of the training. The body recovery program started in the
aftermath of the 1996 TWA Flight 800 disaster that killed 230 people. The
Navy sent 26 divers at that time to aid in the recovery effort. The question
came up as to whether sea lions could be used to help find sea disaster
victims. Zak was the first to be trained.

Zak’s initial training occurred offshore, finding dummies 18 m (60 ft) deep
in salt water with a relatively clear bottom. Tom La Puzza of the Navy’s
Marine Mammal Program said, Sea lions have incredible night vision, like a
cat. If it sees anything that appears like a body, it comes up and gets a
special recovery device from one of the divers. Zak carries the C-shaped
device in his mouth, and hooks it to the body. An attached rope is used to
pull the body to the surface. The sea lion did locate and recover a dummy
dropped into the lake from 67m (220 ft). A successful recovery of the
fisherman might have been accomplished under better conditions: with a
clearer bottom, and perhaps a more accurate spotting of where the man
entered the water.

By Bo Peters