I think it is bordering in insane. Yet, the idea has merit.
It is insane because it is not really a bill of rights is it? What rights are Dolphins demanding? If they are not asking for rights, how does anyone know they are getting what they want. And what Dolphin is going to be the founding forefather of Dolphins and sign the bill? Or in this day an age, can an electronically recorded squeak be considered a signature? Dolphins might be smart (er than most other animal species on the planet) the might be cute (in the eye of the beholder) but at the end of the day they are wild animals. Instead of thinking of flipper, think of a wild dog. It's closer to the mark. Dolphins kill and rape - humans as well as their own species. How will that fit into the bill, and will this bill protect baby Dolphins from infanticide? Absolute nonsense, its the pipe dream of someone's inner hippy.
From the article - this view of Dolphins makes one see them in a pleasent light:
There are also examples of them grieving for lost calves, feeding ailing pod mates and co-operating with fishermen when there is a meal in it for them.
In Laguna, Brazil, when a shoal of fish enters the lagoon, the dolphins herd it towards the fishermen. Any fish that escape their nets provide an easy meal.
At Dingle, south-west Ireland, a bottlenose nicknamed Fungi regularly entertains sightseers in boats.
Perhaps the most striking example of dolphin intelligence involves Kelly, a member of a pod at the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies in Mississippi which were rewarded with fish for clearing up litter from their pool.
Each piece of litter equated to one fish. To raise her intake of fish, Kelly tore the litter into pieces and presented them one by one.
One day, she caught a gull and was given a large haul of fish for her efforts.
She then started to use the fish she won for litter picking to lure gulls into her jaws.
She also taught the tactic to her calf, which passed it on to other youngsters in the pod.
One appropriate term I have seen used for this mindset is
Mystical Dolphin Love.
In reality, it's not like that, as I said, Dolphins are wild animals, just like one's on land, but in the water. Imagine a wild dog that size bounding up to you.
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Dolphins are not gentle or psychic. If they could talk they would not impart eco-wisdom or deep spiritual truth. Dolphins are violent predators with a predilection for baby killing and rape. I feel it's my duty to warn you, despite the risk of insulting creatures made of hundreds of pounds of muscle and rows of sharp teeth. Throw out your rainbow dolphin painting , and check out dolphins' low-down dirty secrets:
--Dolphin sex can be violent and coercive. Gangs of two or three male bottlenose dolphins isolate a single female from the pod and forcibly mate with her, sometimes for weeks at a time. To keep her in line, they make aggressive noises, threatening movements, and even smack her around with their tails. And if she tries to swim away, they chase her down. Horny dolphins have also been known to target human swimmers -Demi Moore is rumored to have had a close encounter of the finny kind.
--Dolphins kill harbor porpoise babies. In Scotland, scientists found baby harbor porpoises washed up with horrific internal injuries. They thought the porpoises might have been killed by weapons tests until they found the toothmarks. Later, dolphins were caught on film pulping the baby porpoises-the dolphins even used their ecolocation to aim their blow at the porpoises' vital organs.
--Dolphins kill their own babies. Baby dolphins have washed up alongside the dead porpoises, and some scientists think that all the porpoise-slaughter was just practice for some old-fashioned infanticide . For other mammals like lions, killing the babies makes the females immediately ready for the next pregnancy, and maybe that's the case with dolphins, too.
The scariest part is dolphins can wreak havoc day and night without sleeping. A recent study found that dolphins could stay awake for five days straight with no loss of mental acuity. The dolphins didn't even need to make up sleep at the end of the study, though the scientists sure did.
But as I said, there might be a positive side as well. The article also states:
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The bill of rights states that every individual member of the cetacean order – whales, dolphins and porpoises – has a right to life.
Maybe we can use this to stop the Japanse Slaughters that are carried out every year. After the USA stuffed the 1982 whaling moratorium, nobody has been able to so much as slow the barbaric practise that benefits nobody and is merely an exercise in national pride. Japan is using weak excuses to kill Whales, maybe we can use a weak excuse to stop them?
So maybe the idea might be a good one. Nutty as it is.
Edited by psyche101, 22 February 2012 - 05:39 AM.
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