Should dolphins be treated as our equals ( Archived) (47)

Findings like that have led some distinguished scientists and ethicists to suggest we need to rethink our role as humans. It turns out we are not alone, and we didn't need to journey into space to find out.

Thomas I. White of the Oxford Centre for Animal Ethics and Loyola Marymount University in Los Angeles told the AAAS session that dolphins should be regarded as "non-human persons," a phrase that has caught on among some scientists.

"Like humans, dolphins appear to be self-conscious, unique individuals with distinctive personalities, memories and a sense of self, who are vulnerable to a wide range of physical and emotional pain and harm, and who have the power to reflect upon and choose their actions," White told an audience that lingered long after the session had ended because participants wanted to discuss the issue further.

What If Dolphins Were Given 'Person' Status?

Giving "person" status to another creature could embolden radical animal protectionists, thus complicating the lives of scientists who depend on a wide range of animals for laboratory research.

But the evidence that some animals are more like us than we might want to believe is so compelling that Marino, one of the leaders in dolphin research, vowed in the telephone interview that she would now study only dolphins in nature, not captivity.

That's significant, because Marino and a colleague, Diana Reiss, successfully carried out one of the most compelling experiments in the relatively brief history of research into intelligence among marine animals.

Marino's grad school adviser at the State University of New York at Albany, Gordon Gallup, is the scientist who first used a mirror to show that chimps recognize themselves, a major breakthrough in the search for other animals with self-awareness. Intrigued with that work, Marino wanted to expand into some area other than heavily researched primates.
Dolphins Are Self-Aware, Research Indicates

Marino began researching dolphins and determined that they had a brain-to-body-mass ratio that is second only to humans. Human beings have the largest brains, compared to their body mass, of any known animals. Brain size, relative to body size, is believed by many scientists to be a key prerequisite to intelligence, although there are many other factors as well.

So Marino and Reiss turned to the New York Aquarium, which had a couple of male bottlenose dolphins in captivity, to see if they knew who they were.

"We marked them on different parts of their bodies with a magic marker," Marino said. Each dolphin immediately raced to the mirror, "postured in front of the mirror and positioned itself in strange ways to expose the marked part of its body much the same way that you and I would if we passed a wall with wet paint on it. As soon as we get to the bathroom we would look in the mirror and turn around to see if we got any paint on us."

Sometimes the researchers used a marker that left no mark, and the result was quite different. The dolphin would dash to the mirror, but if he could not find a mark, he would immediately move on, ignoring the incident. Marino and other researchers have concluded that the experiment showed the dolphins were aware of who they were and knew it was their body they were checking out.

should they have rights.???

my friend pat the dolphin lives down the harbour, he swims everyday

Oh your friend are you coming out of the closet Pedro

nope, I fancy his sister, but she is as big as whale, im trying to catch her