Dolphins and education

1. After research reveals dolphins have
extraordinary intellects and emotional IQs
greater than ours, expert ask: Should they
be treated as humans?
By Philip Hoare
UPDATED:09:05 GMT, 24 February 2012
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Intelligent life: Dolphins possess the next most impressive brain after humans, according to
research
So dolphins are people. Well, ‘non-human persons’ to be more accurate, and
as such they deserve to have the same rights and be protected as humans.

2. That’s the extraordinary conclusion that scientists came to this week. Their
claim — made at the world’s biggest science conference, the American
Association for the Advancement of Science in Vancouver — has been
prompted by the latest findings about the amazing abilities of dolphins and
whales.
Studies now show that these cetaceans, as they are technically known,
possess the next most impressive brains after humans, even ranking above the
great apes.
As Tom White, a professor in philosophy and ethics and a key figure behind
this week’s call, told me recently: ‘We’ve reached the point where we need to
talk about the dolphin as a who, not a what.’
Man has had a long-standing fascination with these creatures. Sleek,
exquisitely hydrodynamic and with a mouth that suggests they’re always
smiling, their size, shape and deeply expressive eyes seem to mark them out
almost as watery versions of ourselves.
For centuries, humans have realised that dolphins are not like other animals,
and no one who has seen a pod of dolphins joyously riding the bow wave of a
boat would deny that the sight makes their heart soar.
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There have been instances when dolphins have appeared to save drowning
swimmers — even circling around them to defend them against sharks. In
New Zealand, in the early 1900s, a dolphin nicknamed Pelorus Jack —
named after the nearby Pelorus Sounds — appeared to guide ships between
the dangerous Cook Strait that divides the country’s North and South Islands.
He delighted passers-by such as Rudyard Kipling and Mark Twain, and in
1904 became the first cetacean to be protected by law after he was shot at by
a passing ship.
But it was only in the 1960s, when we started to keep them in captivity, that
we began to realise the true nature of dolphin intelligence. Experiments with

3. captive animals showed they communicated by using sonar ‘clicks’ — noises
they emit through their blow holes.
Experts believe dolphins should have the same kind of rights as humans in being able to live
peacefully in a safe environment
Each animal has its own signature whistle which it uses to identify or
introduce itself — in effect, its own name. Crucially, this indicated a sense of
individuality, and of self-awareness.
Dr John C. Lilly conducted bizarre and unique experiments with dolphins at
his scientific base in the Caribbean. He constructed a semi-submerged house
in which his researchers lived with a dolphin called Peter for several weeks
— literally sharing the same rooms.
It was just deep enough for Peter to swim in, and shallow enough for the
researchers to wade through, working and sleeping on floating desks and
beds.
But Dr Lilly, who declared dolphins spoke ‘dolphinese’ and were in fact
‘aliens’ sharing our planet, went too far. He then dosed them with the
psychedelic drug, LSD, which killed them, and his extreme ideas discredited
dolphin science for a generation.
Experts believe that within a generation

4. we will have learned to 'talk' to
dolphins by decoding their clicks
Now, though, amazing new work is being done.
We have long known that trainers are able, using signs and sounds, to instruct
the animals to do tricks. Now, we are told, we may soon be able to translate
their clicks.
Experts believe that within a generation we will have learned to ‘talk’ to
dolphins by decoding their clicks, 200 different types of which have already
been identified.
Further experiments have shown that captive dolphins can recognise
themselves, and not only in mirrors. In 1995, an experiment in Hawaii
showed they can also watch themselves on television.
Back in 1964, the science fiction writer Arthur C. Clarke predicted that by the
year 2000, humans would be training primates and cetaceans to work for
them as slaves.
That isn’t as far-fetched as it sounds. The U.S. Navy has used dolphins in
covert warfare since the 1960s, laying underwater mines. Trained dolphins
were used in the Persian Gulf during the Gulf War to clear such mines.

5. Physician and philosopher Dr John C Lilly once theorised that dolphins spoke 'dolphinese'
and were in fact 'aliens' sharing our planet
At the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies in Mississippi, dolphins pick up
any litter that falls in their pool. They take it to their trainer, who rewards
them with fish.
But Kelly the dolphin is outsmarting her captors. She stashes rubbish under a
rock and hands it back only when she’s feeling peckish. It’s another
indication of intelligence: it shows that she’s thinking ahead.
So, too, is the behaviour of bottlenose dolphins in Shark Bay, Western
Australia. They carry sponges from the reef to protect their noses when
grubbing for food on the ocean bed. Other dolphins have been seen blowing
delicate rings of bubbles, merely for their own amusement — raising the
notion that these highly intelligent animals may also sometimes get bored,
like we do.
So what’s going on in the dolphin mind? Analysis shows that in the key
indicator of intelligence, ratio of brain weight to spinal cord weight, humans
measure 50 to 1, dolphins 40 to 1, and primates only 8 to 1.
As a result, dolphins have the capacity for tool use and emotion.

6. I’ve seen dusky dolphins in New Zealand carrying ‘bouquets’ of seaweed in
their beaks, apparently in an effort to impress potential mates.
Like humans and some primates, dolphins are also rare in that they have sex
for its own sake, for pleasure, as well as for procreation.
Certainly, dolphin brains are differently structured to human brains. As Tom
White has shown in his book In Defense of Dolphins, their brains are better
wired than ours in the areas that deal with emotions.
Reports state that cetaceans may have three times as many spindle cells —
the nerve cells that convey empathy — in their brains as we do. Professor
White suggests this might mean these highly social animals have a great
awareness of one another’s feelings — precisely because they live together in
close proximity so need to get along.
Dolphins may even show more
emotional self-control, and deeper
emotions, than humans.
But he goes further, hypothesising that they may even show more emotional
self-control, and deeper emotions, than humans.
Using their sonar — which acts like an MRI scanner — dolphins can actually
see into each other’s bodies. They can therefore detect the temperature
fluctuations that indicate changing emotion. In other words, they cannot lie
about the way they are feeling the way humans often do!
They can also almost literally feel one another’s joy, or pain. This is one
reason why they sometimes get stranded on beaches in huge numbers. When
one dolphin is sick, its comrades will accompany it, loyally — even to the
point of apparent suicide.
Of course, with intelligence comes deviousness. Recently, I attended the
dissection of a harbour porpoise carried out by Dr Rob Deaville of the
Cetacean Strandings Investigation Programme at the Institute of Zoology,
London Zoo.
The animal appeared to be unmarked, and the cause of death a mystery. But
when Dr Deaville cut into the carcase, every rib had been snapped and its

7. liver split in two. In fact, it had been killed by its sizeably bigger cousins, the
bottle-nose dolphins of Cardigan Bay. They’d headbutted it to death, not for
food, just for kicks.
In the past five years, at least 300 such porpoise victims have been found on
the Welsh beach.
Such mind-blowing notions contribute to this week’s declaration by scientists
at the Vancouver conference. They believe that whales and dolphins, along
with apes and elephants, should have special protected status; that such ‘non-
human persons’ should have the same kind of rights as we do — to live
peacefully in a safe environment and not be held captive for mere
entertainment.
It would be a major advance in the way we regard cetaceans — especially in
this the 30th anniversary of the 1982 international moratorium on whaling.
For it would certainly put paid to the whaling operations of Japan, Norway
and Iceland.
We simply could not go on allowing these beautiful, highly complex animals
to be hunted, or kept captive, if we acknowledged they might be almost as
intelligent as us.
n Philip Hoare’s book Leviathan, Or The Whale is published by Fourth
Estate.
Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2105703/Dolphin-expert-asks-Should-
treated-humans.html#ixzz296zz4fZX
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