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What's so great about dolphins???

Nursedan

Critical Thinker
Nursedan
Joined
Mar 16, 2010
Messages
490
Haven't yet seen the movie "The Cove" about the dolphin slaughter in Japan (maybe China? sorry). But, I know the point of the movie (to bring attention to a societal issue). I have talked about this with a friend before, however, and would like some other opinions.

Who cares about dolphins? Seriously - I don't get it. The Japanese want their meat, right? People protest the killing of dolphins but turn a blind eye to fishing and other practices that kill or maim animals. Why are dolphins set aside as the creature we're supposed to love? Is it because they're cute? Smart?

I say as an American - let the Japanese do what they do. Mind your own business unless someone is bothering you.

Someone help me understand why I'm suppposed to specifically care about dolphins.
 
Nursedan said:
Haven't yet seen the movie "The Cove" about the dolphin slaughter in Japan (maybe China? sorry). But, I know the point of the movie (to bring attention to a societal issue). I have talked about this with a friend before, however, and would like some other opinions.

Who cares about dolphins? Seriously - I don't get it. The Japanese want their meat, right? People protest the killing of dolphins but turn a blind eye to fishing and other practices that kill or maim animals. Why are dolphins set aside as the creature we're supposed to love? Is it because they're cute? Smart?

I say as an American - let the Japanese do what they do. Mind your own business unless someone is bothering you.

Someone help me understand why I'm suppposed to specifically care about dolphins.
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I think the "way" they've been killed has shocked a lot of people. Comes across as barbaric and inflicting unnecessary grief on the dolphins. Also dolphin meat is commonly marketed as "whalemeat" in Japan due to the shortages of getting whalemeat which is the more popular meat (although not really popular) but this is another issue altogether.
 
That's true, that is another issue. Don't get me started on the "Whale Wars" people, please...

I don't quite understand why killing an animal one way would be better than killing it another.
 
With regards to dolphins, I think people feel more of a connection to intelligent mammals.
 
I say save the dolphins and eat the Japanese.
I mean, when was the last time a Jap brought any kind of joyful expression to your poor, tired face?
 
Last time I used my Olympus camera.
Besides, they tend to be stringy and stick in the teeth.


On the OP- I think it's because some dolphins look like they smile. That's an accident of bone structure, but people go all gooey over kittens because they look a bit like monkeys with flattened noses. Eat cat food, I say!

In truth, I'm a firm carnivore, but for simple reasons of either ethics or squeamishness I prefer to eat meat from animals that have been raised with attention to their wellbeing and then slaughtered with minimal discomfort. This maybe makes me a moral coward, but I'd rather that than be utterly callous.
The fact we still are hunter gatherers for fish (and marine mammals) seems to me like something that should be a feature of our past. If we must do this, I'd rather it was fast and efficient. The wholesale destruction of sharks for their fins is even more sad in my opinion- we are decimating a top predator for a delicacy. The effect on marine ecology is yet to be measured, but must be major.

If someone is hungry, I'd be the last man to say they have no "right" to eat dolphins, but there are plenty good soups that don't require an animal to be mutilated and condemned to death by starvation.
 
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Nursedan said:
Who cares about dolphins? Seriously - I don't get it. The Japanese want their meat, right? People protest the killing of dolphins but turn a blind eye to fishing and other practices that kill or maim animals. Why are dolphins set aside as the creature we're supposed to love? Is it because they're cute? Smart?
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I think you answered your own question (for most people anyways). It seems pretty obvious to me why most people like them.
 
Soapy Sam said:
The wholesale destruction of sharks for their fins is even more sad in my opinion- we are decimating a top predator for a delicacy. The effect on marine ecology is yet to be measured, but must be major.
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Slightly off topic, I went to a very large Chinese wedding with my fiance's family in December. On the menu was shark fin soup. I refused to eat it. I didn't make a fuss about it; the things were already dead after all. A few of them thought I was being culturally insensitive to them because I wouldn't participate in the raping of an ecosystem for a ********** soup.
 
Actually one of the reasons people get upset is because it's not that they are being slaughtered for their meat, but rather because "They eat the fish!" Excuse me, but the dolphins were there first, and have more right to the fish than we do. I am sure that there would be extreme internnational outcry if humans were slaughtered because other's wanted their resources, but it's fine to kill intelligent mammals for the same.
 
Nursedan said:
Why are dolphins set aside as the creature we're supposed to love?
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Would you react differently to someone smashing a bug than to someone beating a dog to death? If so (I hope... otherwise you're very strange), think about why. Now you should be able to see why people might react differently to killing fish than to killing dolphins.
 
PhantomWolf said:
Actually one of the reasons people get upset is because it's not that they are being slaughtered for their meat, but rather because "They eat the fish!" Excuse me, but the dolphins were there first, and have more right to the fish than we do. I am sure that there would be extreme internnational outcry if humans were slaughtered because other's wanted their resources, but it's fine to kill intelligent mammals for the same.
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"We shoot people, too"- Signy Mallory.

Arguably, as human numbers grow, competition for food will become a serious issue- and intelligent competitors may be the ones we come down on hardest.
An all round preferable solution (IMO) is human birth control- but some people object to that for the same reasons others dislike killing seals or dolphins.
 
I disagree with the notion that we'd be better off as a human species if there were less of us.

In response to the bug-dog analogy, I see your point, and no I don't equate the two creatures. However, I eat cows and pigs and chickens, and you probably do too. These are arguably as "lovabale" as dolphins, right? Or at least capable of being loved as much as dolphins.

It's hard for me to understand and beleive the notion that people have trouble with the slaughter of dolphins because they are "smiling" or cute. That can't be it, can it???
 
Nursedan said:
In response to the bug-dog analogy, I see your point, and no I don't equate the two creatures. However, I eat cows and pigs and chickens, and you probably do too.
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I actually don't. If you can see my point, you could probably see why someone might eat those animals and still object to killing dolphins, though.

These are arguably as "lovabale" as dolphins, right? Or at least capable of being loved as much as dolphins.
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I find moral objection to the killing of non-"loveable" or "cute" humans, whether or not they are similing, so that is clearly far from the whole story.

What I had in mind was intelligence. I realize it's also too simplistic alone, but it's still an important factor.

Dolphins are arguably the most intelligent non-human animals, period. This article will probably explain the point of view you're having trouble with better than I could (not that I necessarily agree with everything it says):

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/science/article6973994.ece

It's hard for me to understand and beleive the notion that people have trouble with the slaughter of dolphins because they are "smiling" or cute. That can't be it, can it???
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You are correct, it's not.
 
Nursedan said:
In response to the bug-dog analogy, I see your point, and no I don't equate the two creatures. However, I eat cows and pigs and chickens, and you probably do too. These are arguably as "lovabale" as dolphins, right? Or at least capable of being loved as much as dolphins.
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Do you eat apes? Would you raise, slaughter, and then eat a chimpanzee? Note a chimp evinces about the intelligence of a three year old.

Dolphins play with forethought (say, blowing bubbles in a way that they combine so the dolphin can swim through them and burst a big bubble). They recognize themselves in mirrors. Though we have hardly begun to crack the code, they communicate with each other through sound. They are curious and play with humans, and have even saved drowning people. They form alliances. They have assisted other species in giving birth. They learn from each other through observation. Their brains have anatomical features that are correlated with higher intelligence.

It's obviously too early to reach any firm conclusions, but it seems reasonable to give them the benefit of the doubt and treat them like an intelligent species rather than a protein source.

Personally, I'm not sweating somebody eating a river dolphin with a 7oz brain. But a bottlenose exhibiting very complex behaviors coupled with the convoluted folds that a human brain has? I think there are more reasonable sources of protein than this.

Some of this, especially the brain structure issue, is based on very recent research. (example: http://news.discovery.com/animals/dolphin-intelligence-explained.html) However, recognition of intelligence doesn't exactly require science, though of course we need science to confirm it with no doubt, and to measure it's limits. Yes, dolphins are cute, but they are cute in a very complex way - there's "something" or "someone" in there, it seems.

I recall seeing a gorilla in the DC zoo. I'm not particularly gaga about apes in general - I'm probably going to spend more time with the antelopes and such in a zoo. But I recall about dropping a load in my pants because of the enormous sense of "someone in there" I got. Sure, it could be spurious, but a heck of a lot of people get that sensation from species like these, and science is generally backing up these feelings.

I've never interacted with a dolphin, but tend to grant people the benefit of the doubt that sense intelligence, purpose, and a personality in them. It just seems prudent to err on the side of caution, doesn't it?
 
roger said:
I've never interacted with a dolphin, but tend to grant people the benefit of the doubt that sense intelligence, purpose, and a personality in them. It just seems prudent to err on the side of caution, doesn't it?
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What would be the penalty for not being "cautious"? Perhaps one day I might learn I ate something that was close in intelligence to a human? By the way, I have no intention of eating dolphin, I'm speaking hypothetically.

In response to a previous post: I think the dolphin would be smiling even as it were being slaughtered, instead of frowning (theres a disturbing image - a frowning dolphin...) Anyway, it negates the thinking that we disagree with the killing of dolphins because they appear to smile.

By the way - this thread can end because I've got it all figured out. I'll call it the "Flipper effect". We associate dolphins with the TV show, and thus we humanize them, making it strange to kill them.
 
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