If you’ve never heard of the US Navy’s Marine Mammal Program, just know that it’s training sea lions to play video games. Why? Scientists from the Naval Information Warfare Center (NIWC) believe that this is a proven method for cognitive enrichment and it opens doors for more research on keeping marine mammals happy as well as healthy longer.
The sea lion, named Spike, uses his snout to press a button and maneuver a cursor through a maze. His eyes carefully tracks the cursor and after crossing the finish line, a trainer rewards him with herring. Spike, along with his two friends, have completed 450 gaming sessions so far, but add in the other sea lions in the program, and the number jumps to over 750.
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That’s why I’m doing this, you know? I really care about these animals and the lives they lead. I love all the cool stuff we can look at with this research, but at the end of the day, I want to see them happy and enjoying themselves,” said Kelley Winship, NMMF scientist and principal investigator for research using the Enclosure Video Enrichment (EVE) system.
