You're reading: Killer dolphin escape story ‘absolutely fabricated,’ officials say

News that three military dolphins escaped from the Sevastopol Aquarium sped around the Internet at lightning-speed in the last day.

But those
responsible for taking care of the dolphins say the story is totally false.

Killer dolphins,
also known as military dolphins, are animals trained for use in military
operations. They are trained to carry and place underwater mines, rescue naval
swimmers or find lost underwater military units.

“This is
absolutely fabricated news. There is no way anything like this could happen and
all the animals we have are in their places,” says Anatoliy Gorbachev, the
director of the national Research Center of Ukrainian Armed Forces State
Aquarium in Sevastopol. 

According
to aquarium authorities, it was local media Sobytia Kryma (Crimean Events) that
first posted the news about the escape of the animals equipped with military
firearms during the training in the open sea on Feb. 24 on their website.

“Our
lawyers are now checking the sources of this slanderous statement and Sobytia
Kryma say that they got a copy of the report, that, they claim, was signed by
me personally, which is not true of course. And instead of checking the
information, as professional journalists are supposed to do, they just reported
it,” Gorbachev said.

The Kyiv
Post wasn’t able to contact Sobytia Kryma to confirm their data. However, the
information about the escape of the dolphins and the scanned copy of the fake
report can still be found on their website.

The press service
of Ukrainian Defense Ministry also officially denied the information about the
accident.

“Widespread
information about the alleged escape of animals can be considered nothing more
than a rough provocation,” the official report on Defense Ministry’s website
reads. The ministry said that all six dolphins and one sea lion never left the
territory of aquarium water area on Feb. 24. and are still in it.

Gorbachev
also said that the date of the reported escape of the animals makes the
information even more ridiculous. “Feb. 24 was the 47th anniversary
of our organization and Sunday, so we definitely were not conducting any training
on that day, as most of the workers were having a day off,” he told the Kyiv
Post.

The
director of Sevastopol Aquarium also denied that any military training programs
with dolphins are being conducted in Ukraine. “We don’t do that, we do
science,” he said and added that Ukraine is a trade state and just doesn’t need
programs of that kind. However defense Ministry press officials refused to
comment on existence of such programs in Ukraine.

The
programs for training military dolphins are known to exist in Russian and U.S.
fleets only. However, despite the official denial of the authorities, there are
reports coming out from time to time that after the breakup of the Soviet Union,
Ukraine also got trained animals and continued the program.

 Kyiv Post staff writer Daryna Shevchenko can be reached at [email protected]