Scientists say dolphins should be treated as 'non-human persons'
 

From The Sunday Times
January 3, 2010
Scientists say dolphins should be treated as 'non-human persons'


Dolphins have long been recognized as among the most intelligent of
animals but many researchers had placed them below chimps
Jonathan Leake

Dolphins have been declared the world’s second most intelligent
creatures after humans, with scientists suggesting they are so bright
that they should be treated as “non-human persons”.

Studies into dolphin behaviour have highlighted how similar their
communications are to those of humans and that they are brighter than
chimpanzees. These have been backed up by anatomical research showing
that dolphin brains have many key features associated with high
intelligence.

The researchers argue that their work shows it is morally unacceptable
to keep such intelligent animals in amusement parks or to kill them for
food or by accident when fishing. Some 300,000 whales, dolphins and
porpoises die in this way each year.

“Many dolphin brains are larger than our own and second in mass only to
the human brain when corrected for body size,” said Lori Marino, a
zoologist at Emory University in Atlanta, Georgia, who has used magnetic
resonance imaging scans to map the brains of dolphin species and compare
them with those of primates.

“The neuroanatomy suggests psychological continuity between humans and
dolphins and has profound implications for the ethics of human-dolphin
interactions,” she added.

Dolphins have long been recognised as among the most intelligent of
animals but many researchers had placed them below chimps, which some
studies have found can reach the intelligence levels of three-year-old
children. Recently, however, a series of behavioural studies has
suggested that dolphins, especially species such as the bottlenose,
could be the brighter of the two. The studies show how dolphins have
distinct personalities, a strong sense of self and can think about the
future.

It has also become clear that they are “cultural” animals, meaning that
new types of behaviour can quickly be picked up by one dolphin from another.

In one study, Diana Reiss, professor of psychology at Hunter College,
City University of New York, showed that bottlenose dolphins could
recognise themselves in a mirror and use it to inspect various parts of
their bodies, an ability that had been thought limited to humans and
great apes.

In another, she found that captive animals also had the ability to learn
a rudimentary symbol-based language.

Other research has shown dolphins can solve difficult problems, while
those living in the wild co-operate in ways that imply complex social
structures and a high level of emotional sophistication.

In one recent case, a dolphin rescued from the wild was taught to
tail-walk while recuperating for three weeks in a dolphinarium in Australia.

After she was released, scientists were astonished to see the trick
spreading among wild dolphins who had learnt it from the former captive.

There are many similar examples, such as the way dolphins living off
Western Australia learnt to hold sponges over their snouts to protect
themselves when searching for spiny fish on the ocean floor.

Such observations, along with others showing, for example, how dolphins
could co-operate with military precision to round up shoals of fish to
eat, have prompted questions about the brain structures that must
underlie them.

Size is only one factor. Researchers have found that brain size varies
hugely from around 7oz for smaller cetacean species such as the Ganges
River dolphin to more than 19lb for sperm whales, whose brains are the
largest on the planet. Human brains, by contrast, range from 2lb-4lb,
while a chimp’s brain is about 12oz.

When it comes to intelligence, however, brain size is less important
than its size relative to the body.

What Marino and her colleagues found was that the cerebral cortex and
neocortex of bottlenose dolphins were so large that “the anatomical
ratios that assess cognitive capacity place it second only to the human
brain”. They also found that the brain cortex of dolphins such as the
bottlenose had the same convoluted folds that are strongly linked with
human intelligence.

Such folds increase the volume of the cortex and the ability of brain
cells to interconnect with each other. “Despite evolving along a
different neuroanatomical trajectory to humans, cetacean brains have
several features that are correlated with complex intelligence,” Marino
said.

Marino and Reiss will present their findings at a conference in San
Diego, California, next month, concluding that the new evidence about
dolphin intelligence makes it morally repugnant to mistreat them.

Thomas White, professor of ethics at Loyola Marymount University, Los
Angeles, who has written a series of academic studies suggesting
dolphins should have rights, will speak at the same conference.

“The scientific research . . . suggests that dolphins are ‘non-human
persons’ who qualify for moral standing as individuals,” he said.


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If dolphins are the second most intelligent beings, I suppose that
knocks Tosk, Loogy, Flajim and the other morons here down to what, fifth
place? :)

And, of course, Captain SW Tom will now hire himself out as the guide
you need to catch 'em, skin 'em, and eat 'em when he's not spoofing the
IDs of other posters here, and W'hine will tell us about the dolphins
he's had aboard as guests on his "how big is that crawler-trawler" barge
of his.