By: Paolo Ramos/Staff Writer
The search for intelligent life beyond our atmosphere is ironic considering that it exists right here on the same planet.
In oceans worldwide, intelligence and culture are present in the dwindling communities of cetaceans, which is the family that dolphins and whales belong to that are constantly threatened by human activities.
Whales and dolphins have proven that they have the capacity to understand and learn just as humans can.
Incomprehensibly, humans have responded by hunting their species to near extinction and giving little to no regard to the protection of their environment.
The underestimation of the intellectual capacity of cetaceans has contributed to the unrelenting terror caused by whaling activity.
Whales and dolphins must be treated with respect and dignity, much like how humans are supposed to treat each other. To lose such valuable animals would be a devastating loss to the planet.
In the minds of much of society, whales and dolphins exist as caricatures of simple-minded animals whose only aim is to blindly entertain us.
A generation of people who grew up with characters like Free Willy or Flipper have a severely limited understanding of the true nature of these animals.
Cetaceans are not the puppy-dog like characters that can easily be taught to do tricks as they are portrayed in film.
Rather, they are beings with complex thought processes and cultural aspects that transcend the regular animal nature.
They are capable of self-awareness, empathy and higher learning, characteristics that constitute sentience.
In an article published in The Guardian, several examples of high intelligence in cetaceans were listed.
In one case, dolphins were observed to check marks that were drawn on their bodies when presented with a mirror.
In another scenario, a pod of wild orcas exhibited strong social ties when an elder member of the pod suffered a jaw injury and was helped by the other members that resorted to manually feeding it.
On a biological level, certain species of whales and dolphins, such as the bottlenose dolphin, have been found to have “spindle cells,” neurons that are designed for rapid transmission and were previously thought to occur only in humans, apes and elephants.
The mounting evidence for high cetacean intelligence should be a determining factor in whether or not whaling should continue.
Whaling activities continue to be a significant threat to whale and dolphin populations worldwide.
Although the International Whaling Commission has placed a moratorium on whaling, activities still occur through legal or illegal means to seemingly no benefit.
Whales and dolphins are hunted for their meat, which some countries consider to be a delicacy.
This is ironic because whale and dolphin meat has been known to contain significantly high levels of toxins and pollutants such as mercury.
Modern whaling methods make this fact even more disturbing. One method is the exploding harpoon, which explodes in the inside of a whale upon penetration.
In the film The Cove, an undercover mission exposed the horrific methods of dolphin-drive hunting in Japan where thousands of dolphins were driven and trapped in an inlet and were subsequently slaughtered.
There are current discussions in the scientific community on whether or not cetaceans should be considered “non-human persons.”
Whales and dolphins are one of the few species of animals that demonstrate higher mental processing. They have exhibited culture, language, learning and complex social structures, much like what humans call civilized society.
In a BBC article, psychologist Dr. Lori Marion was quoted saying: “We went from seeing the dolphin/whale brain as being a giant amorphous blob that doesn’t carry a lot of intelligence and complexity to not only being an enormous brain but an enormous brain with an enormous amount of complexity, and a complexity that rivals our own.”
If whales and dolphins exhibit similarity to human culture socially, mentally and biologically, then there should be more considerations taken when making decisions such as those involving whaling.
If humans wish to gain a better understanding of intelligent life, then the preservation of whales and dolphins is the key.
The future looks bleak for most cetacean species, but if there are more efforts to iterate the fact that dolphins share the same values as humans, then maybe there is still a chance for the several endangered species to replenish.
paolo.ramos@fiusm.com
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