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Animals in Espionage
t CIA, we find inspiration in all kinds of places, including nature. From robotic catfish to real-life spy birds, animals and their look-alikes have helped Agency officers perform a variety of critical duties, including eavesdropping, intelligence gathering, security, covert communications, and photo surveillance.
From robotic catfish to real-life spy birds, animals and their look-alikes have helped Agency officers perform a variety of critical duties, including eavesdropping, intelligence gathering, security, covert communications, and photo surveillance. While many of the animal programs studied by CIA were never deployed operationally—or failed for a variety of technical, logistical, or behavioral reasons—collectively they demonstrate the incredible innovation and creative thinking that has come to characterize everything that our Directorate of Science and Technology does. Beginning in 1964, CIA explored the idea of using a cat, wired with a microphone and transmitter, to monitor conversations held in the open—such as on park benches between foreign agents and their Soviet handlers—that otherwise couldn’t be eavesdropped upon.
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