I'm even more intrigued by the sneaky sea lions:

The Navy's California sea lions, which can dive as deep as 1,000 feet, are normally trained to recover unarmed practice mines after training exercises. But their directional hearing, excellent low light vision and ability to make repeated deep dives make them ideal for a more complex mission, officials say.

Now they're in a combat zone for the first time, in a demonstration project to see how well they can patrol for enemy frogmen and capture them.

The sea lion carries in its mouth a clamp attached to a long rope. When it spots an enemy diver, the animal sneaks up, slaps the clamp on his leg, and then darts away while sailors on the surface haul the frogman up.

That actually bothers me less than the monkeys do. I can completely believe that dolphins could (a) find mines, and (b) be trained to avoid touching them. They're certainly going to be way better at it than human divers are, and are probably better than any form of mechanical detection we can build.

Monkeys, on the other hand --- I can't drive the image out of my head that says these creatures are finding mines by blowing them up.

That was my impression, too. But it can’t be very cost effective, if the monkeys are actually trained. And if they’re not, you might as well use a motorized cat toy or something — cheaper to feed.

Still, I haven’t been able to find any actual information on this so-called “well-known military tactic,” so at the moment I’m not too worried for my fellow primates.

The sea lions, on the other hand, I believe entirely. They’re tricksy devils, those sea lions.

And can I just say that I think it’s a shame the word frogman isn’t used more often?

Well, we've been hearing about Navy Seals for years, so moving on to sea lions seems like the next logical step.