The US Navy is training sea lions and dolphins to play videogames
A new press release from the US Navy(opens in new tab) arrives with the rather eye-catching headline: «The Navy's Sea Lions Love Video Games.» And the contents certainly deliver, focusing on a sea lion nicknamed Spike who's apparently «the most avid gamer in a sea pen floating in the San Diego Bay.» Spike likes fish, napping, and playing a game system designed by Navy scientists to train marine mammals.
The Navy is very proud of Spike because, although he was the last of three male sea lions to learn how to play these videogames, he was the first to complete the full training program: He learned to understand the concept of controlling a cursor on a screen, then was gradually put through a series of more challenging games, with plenty of fishy rewards along the way. This apparently marks the first recorded success «in testing cognition of California sea lions with an animal-controlled interface.»
The gamer sea lions are a project run by the US Navy Marine Mammal Program, which also has gamer bottlenose dolphins, and as well as training the mammals to perform various tasks the organisation believes the games offer «cognitive enrichment» and essentially keep the animals happier and healthier.
One of the games described is a simple maze game, where Spike has to manipulate the cursor to the exit. The navy press release describes it thus:
«On the deck of the sea pen, it’s pure delight: Spike uses his snout to press a button and maneuver a cursor through a maze. His eyes track the cursor with laser-like focus. When he crosses the finish line, we cheer and his trainer rewards him with herring. The joy in the eye contact between him and his trainer as they celebrate a job well done—Spike with his side-to-side dance and victory
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