Murmansk is the only city in the world where the scientists study the behavior of the Pinnipedia of the Phocidae family in the Seaquarium of Lake Semenovskoe, where bearded seals (Erignatus barbatus), ringed seals (Phoca hispidia), gray seals (Halichoerus grypus) and Greenland seals (Histriophoca groenlandica) live.
The idea put forward by G. Matishov, Director of the Murmansk Institute of Sea Biology, Russian Academy of Sciences, turned out to be fruitful. He suggested that the Institute specialists should investigate the abilities of the Pinnipedia inhibiting the Barents Sea to develop a set of complicated behavioral skills. The first experiments which started back in 1984 proved that intellectually these animals were not inferior to the sea-lions and even dolphins. Moreover, in the difficult situations specifically set up by the scientists the gray seals turned out to be more quick-witted than their congeners from the South.
Their intellect is so high that these animals can become indispensable assistants to human beings' activity in the sea. The research assistants from the Laboratory of Sea Mammals, the Murmansk Institute of Sea Biology, have found the confirmation to this fact while coaching the gray seals in line with the American methodology 'Fast search' and 'Deep waters search', the goal being to teach Pinnipedia to search for and bring to the surface the military equipment sunken under water. Within six months the gray seals have mastered a one-year course the USA naval forces use to train sea lions for underwater rescue activities.
The seals have learned to follow the boat, to dive at the command, to look for the sunken stuff they were taught to recognize during the training and to bring the things to the surface. It speaks for itself that in 80% of the cases the seals have coped perfectly with the tasks without any prompts from the coaches, but when a specific frequency acoustic transmitter was fixed on a search object, the animals managed to find such object practically in 100% of the cases.
Two 'specialists' - gray seals called Filya and Kai - have been coached in Murmansk so far. They are capable to be of significant help to the divers working at great depths. Thanks to their physiology, sea mammals are able to sink to the depth of up to 200-450 meters and to stay under water for up to 20-30 minutes, emerging to the surface at a speed of up to 5 meters per second, suffering no symptoms of caisson disease. The seals are not big, manoeuvring and are capable to find their way in the dark. They can be taught to tie slings around big objects and to deliver the 'catch' to the ship. If a seal is encouraged to deliver certain objects only in the Seaquarium and the sea proving ground, the seals will develop a stable reflex: the error rate will not exceed 10-20 % in the course of rescue activities. Even if the animals get cut or injured in the communication lines interlacing and twisted partitions, the injuries are not fatal for them. However, the damage to the diving-suit or to any life support system unit can cause the diver's death.
Nevertheless, the specialists of the Murmansk Institute of Sea Biology failed to come forward with a proposal to use the seals for rescue activities on board the 'Kursk' submarine. Facilities required for the seals' retraining (in the settlement of Dalnie Zelentsy), have fallen into complete decay within the last ten years, and the pinnipedia had to spent the whole seven years in the fresh water swimming pool, its depth being only four meters. Although the seals normally remember once learned lessons for a long time and do not need retraining, their current physical state leaves much to be desired. To restore the animals' ability to make lengthy plunges to great depths, it is necessary to make them through the following sequence the swimming-pool - the open-air cage - the proving ground - the sea, but the staff of the Murmansk Institute of Sea Biology have no such opportunity now.
A recent visit of Academician Yu. Osipov, President of the Russian Academy of Sciences, to the Murmansk Seaquarium made the scientists feel more optimistic. The Academician was so much impressed by the success of the Seaquarium pinnipedia, that he promised to facilitate granting the necessary funds.
Hopefully, the Russian government will allocate the funds to update the material resources and experimental facilities required to train and retrain the seals for rescue and emergency operations. The seals' services can be helpful not only for the Ministry of Emergency Situations. The coached animals can also be indispensable for the International Program on Ecological Protection of Water Basins of Russia which implies the search and extraction of the ammunition containing poisonous and hazardous substances from the Baltic Sea. The seals could also help the Federal Frontier Service to guard the state boarder. The seals can be used for the purpose of geological survey and in fishery, for checkup of underwater communication lines and installations which provide communication between the divers and photography of the bottom relief and sunken objects. In the USA, the sea animals are still guarding two bases of the Trident submarine (Bangor and Kings Bay).
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