As though the US Navy didn’t do enough harm to dolphins already by conducting war games in their habitat, it turns out that it also regularly put its captives through grueling and painful experiments under the guise of "science."

The Navy holds around 85 captive dolphins in pens in San Diego Bay, a stone’s throw from SeaWorld. A new report says that these individuals are used in experiments to allegedly lead to cures of  human diseases such as diabetes.

Among the battery of invasive procedures the dolphins are forced to undergo include catheters being inserted into their bladders and anuses for 25 hours at a time; biopsies of their blubber that requires multiple painful needle punches; being forced to endure freezing cold water temperatures that they would never encounter in the wild, and using a stomach tube to force gallons of seawater into their stomachs.

The head scientist conducting these painful and unethical experiments, Veterinarian Stephanie Venn-Watson, works for the National Marine Mammal Foundation, a body that is supposed to protect dolphins. Yet she is reportedly “pursuing her own, for-profit venture – a company called Epitracker – under an exclusive research license from the Navy.”

Using dolphins in experiments that have absolutely zero benefit to the dolphins and exclusive benefits (albeit dubious) to human beings is wrong on so many levels. All of these dolphins should be moved to seaside sanctuaries when they become available, and never forced to undergo another invasive procedure again.