Earth in Transition
February 2012
At the world’s largest science conference, scientists and ethicists
presented the case for recognizing dolphins and whales as non-human persons.
The annual AAAS Conference (American
Association for the Advancement of Science) draws scientists from around
the world for presentations on everything from nuclear physics to medicine
to climate change.
One of the big draws at this year’s gathering in Vancouver was a panel
discussion on the intelligence and self awareness of dolphins and whales
(known together as cetaceans), and the ethical and legal implications of the
latest science on these animals.
The growing understanding we have of cetaceans led to the drawing up of a
Declaration of Rights for Cetaceans last year in Helsinki.
Dr. Lori Marino, of Emory University in Atlanta, who is also Science Advisor
to Zoe, explained that this declaration was prompted, in part, by everything
we’ve been learning in recent years about the dolphin brain.
“We’ve gone from seeing the dolphin or whale brain as being giant amorphous
blob that doesn’t carry a lot of intelligence and complexity to being an
enormous brain with a complexity that rivals our own,” she said. “It’s
different in the way it’s put together, but in terms of the level of
complexity it is very similar to the human brain.”
Dr. Thomas White, an ethics expert at Loyola Marymount University in
California, followed up with the rationale for the recently drafted
Declaration of Rights for Cetaceans.
“The similarities between cetaceans and humans are such that they, as we,
have an individual sense of self,” he explained. “Dolphins are non human
persons. A person needs to be an individual. If individuals count, then the
deliberate killing of individuals of this sort is ethically the equivalent
of deliberately killing a human being. The science has shown that
individuality, consciousness, self awareness is no longer a unique human
property.”
Fungi, a bottlenose dolphin who likes to visit with humans off the coast
of Ireland, is an example of how we can learn from cetaceans in the wild,
rather than in captivity. It also gives them an opportunity to learn from us
and pass that knowledge on to their own kind, which is, by definition, not
possible in captivity.
Dr. White said that recognizing the status of cetaceans in law is
important because it would make commercial whaling and imprecise fishing
methods, which kill hundreds of thousands of dolphins and whales each year,
morally abhorrent.
The group of experts gave several examples of whale and dolphin behavior
that demonstrate their social and cultural interactions, both in the wild
and in captivity:
Dr. Marino noted that while much of what we know about the intelligence
of dolphins has been gathered from dolphins in captivity, this is no longer
the case. “In the last 10 years, we’ve learned almost nothing of any value
from dolphins in captivity,” she said.
“The new frontiers of scientific knowledge are all what we’re beginning to
learn from dolphins in the wild – from interacting with these animals on
their terms, rather than on ours.”
The Declaration of Cetacean Rights was drawn up last year at a meeting in
Helsinki, sponsored by the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS).
Chris Butler-Stroud of the WDCS spoke about how the Declaration will help to
shape international policy over the coming years.
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