Yes, you read that title right, there are whales and dolphins aboard the USS Enterprise NCC-1701-D in Star Trek: The Next Generation. This is canon. The tweets posted below by Aaron J. Waltke (who is a producer for the upcoming Star Trek: Prodigy animated show) go into more detail about it. Also here’s the info from the Memory Beta Star Trek Wiki page:
“Cetacean ops was a facility on Federation Galaxy-class starships. Located on deck 13, cetacean ops was directly opposite the wet/dry access lock to the cetacean crew’s living quarters and navigation lab, and adjacent to the main computer core. It housed engineering/research experiments, dedicated hardware activation, multi-operator consoles and an atmosphere recirculator.”
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Source: Aaron J. Waltke
(More info in the: Star Trek The Next Generation: Technical Manual)
Did you know there were whales and dolphins on the Enterprise in Star Trek: The Next Generation? Leave a comment below!
Cetacean ops is portrayed in the Lower Decks animated series which is set only a few years after TNG
I had always suspected it was actually Xindi Aquatics (From ST:ENT) but yeah apparently dolphins. Though the LD cetations appear to be Belugas.
My head canon is that the concept of adding Cetacean Ops to Starfleet ships was thought up by Dr. Gillian Taylor after she parted ways with Kirk and crew.