Some day I'll tell you how I used to cross the Cold War borders of various Eastern Bloc countries, including Soviet Russia, armed with ... a chocolate bar.
Meanwhile, enjoy this interesting, if sad tale of Cold War's unintended victims... the Red Deer:
Ahornia inhabits the thickly wooded mountains along what once was the fortified border between West Germany and Czechoslovakia. At the height of the Cold War, a high electric fence, barbed wire and machine-gun-carrying guards cut off Eastern Europe from the Western world. The barriers severed the herds of deer on the two sides as well.
The fence is long gone, and the no-man's land where it stood now is part of Europe's biggest nature preserve. The once-deadly border area is alive with songbirds nesting in crumbling watchtowers, foxes hiding in weedy fortifications and animals not seen here for years, such as elk and lynx.
But one species is boycotting the reunified animal kingdom: red deer. Herds of them roam both sides of the old NATO-Warsaw Pact border here but mysteriously turn around when they approach it. This although the deer alive today have no memory of the ominous fence.
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It seems that by law (10 USC 7524), the Secretary of Defense is authorized to "take" (or acquire) up to 25 wild marine mammals each year "for national defense purposes." These mammals — including whales, dolphins, porpoises, seals and sea lions — are used for military missions such as locating and marking underwater mines, and providing force protection against unauthorized swimmers or vehicles, among other things.
