Being someone who has read up on dolphins for a long time, I find it interesting that they are so intellegent and full of empathy though dogs(also mammals) do the same things. What evolutionary need do they have that directs them to do this? I used to ponder as a teenager if the people of Atlantis or another seacoast culture had domesticated them. There is just something fishy about all of this.

Like Dogs, they travel in groups and cooperate for defense and finding food. this would give them a benefit over sharks and other predators and those that compete with them for food. So would language, which dolphins have the beginnings of.

I don't think that the people of Atlantis domesticated dolphins. I think there are good explanations for the things you stated.

nice statement. the Atlantis thing came to me in middle school. I had to write a mythological tale so I wrote a paper on dolphins that were used as pets and protectors of the people of atlantis. I cannot remember the details, but a dolphin named mutt who was a search and rescue dolphin found the prince who was lost at sea.

No dolphins were not domesticated. They are not altruistic. They don't all travel in groups. They do terribly in captivity. They are wild animals and some species (well all but one species) show nothing overly spectacular in terms of intelligence.
I hate happy dolphin crap.

Neo - Sharks are far more successful predators than dolphins and are known to use cooperative hunting techniques. Some are also excellent hunters of dolphins (bull, white and tiger esp, but many species will take bites from passing dolphin).

Sharks don't do well in terms of predation of dolphins unless the dolphin is sick, injured, or elderly.

http://www.dolphinencounters.com/shark.htm

"In addition to sonar, dolphins rely on each other for defense. They travel in numbers for protection (females with offspring, adult males, and sub-adult males each comprising their own social groups). Those who fall prey to attack are usually either alone, ill, injured, very young or very old. Healthy, alert, social animals are not often at risk.

In the case of a shark attack, dolphins will defend themselves. What they lack in speed they make up for in maneuverability. Between the whip of their tail and the ram of their rostrum, dolphins can be a force to reckon with. An open mouth full of sharp, conical teeth can also prove a deadly weapon."

Also from this site:

"One look at our dolphin Chippy answers the question of whether or not sharks attack dolphins....undoubtedly yes! She is DE's best example of the everyday dangers facing wild dolphins. Her body bears scars from at least one shark attack - the large circular scar on her underside is indicative of a shark bite (with teeth marks to match) - her 'chipped-up' dorsal fin was most likely the result of a similar attack."
http://www.dolphinencounters.com/shark.htm

Also note that this is a site that let's children swim with animals that "between the whip of their tail and the ram of their rostrum, dolphins can be a force to reckon with. An open mouth full of sharp, conical teeth can also prove a deadly weapon."

Swim with the dolphin programs are not exactly the most reliable sites for information, there are numerous scientific papers proving the opposite to be truth and a lot of scientists working with dolphins will tell you from personal experience about losing perfectly healthy study animals to sharks.

People like to think dolphins are 'smart' and 'smarter' than sharks because they are more like us, but fact is, this does not make them more successful predators, I am in a bit of a rush right now but I can and will provide you with a host of scientific papers which are all about shark predation on dolphins if you would like to educate yourself about this subject from more reliable sources.

Try to domesticate an animal now. It's personality changes every generation and would result in returning to it's Natural Side.

Nice scientific source you have there.
How about the work of Randall Wells, he discovered the reaction of a bottlenose dolphin to a bull shark (not the largest of sharks) was to swim away from the shark as fast as possible while trying to keep watch on the shark R. Well and I. Blair 1973 - finding that the idea of this experiment was not implementable.. Or there was the perfectly healthy adult dolphin in Sarasota Bay F139 whom only the dorsal fin and a piece of attached spinal cord was found.

There is also a great deal of other evidence showing how sharks (great whites, tigers, bulls and dusky's especially) like to eat dolphin.
Interactions between shark and dolphin including competition and predator prey.
Shark attack on bottlenose dolphin in Shark Bay in Australia.
Tiger shark affecting dolphin feeding behaviour.
An update on the above study.
Sharks attacks on dolphin in Natal, South Africa.
Great whites illiciting flight response in bottlenose dolphin.
Hope this is enough evidence for you.

Back in the 60's I know I am telling my age. There was a TV series called fipper about a pet dolphins. The only was they used like 5 dolphins to made the series.

And, Cathy one of those five dolphins, died of stress related causes with blisters all over her body from the stage lighting used during the production, in the arms of her trainer who for this reason crossed over to the complete opposite and has become extremely anti-captivity.
If anyone is interested in the Flipper dolphins, his book talks about them quite a lot; Behind the Dolphin's Smile

Seconded.

Dolphins are over rated. People go apesh*** and think dolphins are some kind of cetacean messiah because they do a few tricks at an aquarium. Any intelligence in dolphins developed was for hunting or socialising with their own kind, not for "helping atlantis".

Sounds like your problem is not with dolphins but rather people. I agree people are the suckiest animals but that Atlantis thing was just a theory. Besides if dolphins are intelligent because of socializing then why do they help beached whales and people?

I saw a dolphin with a cask of brandy around its neck. It was trained by monks.

People see what they want to see, people like to see dolphins as these fluffy altruistic wonderful beings full of goodness and anything that can conceivably be brought up to support this notion gets embellished to an unreasonable level.
A lot of it is misinterpretation. There are stories of dolphins supporting drowning people at sea, but what is not mentioned in these stories is that dolphins also support inanimate objects like mattresses or a shark (of a small and harmless species )that they themselves recently killed (presumably for sport as it was not consumed and it was not a threat) suggesting this is an instictual behaviour rather than anything else. Sure, there are stories of dolphins chasing off sharks, but this is a very rare occurence, given the choice most dolphins will choose flight over confronting a shark as pointed out previously, when they do fend off sharks 'from people' it is most likely self defense or defense of calves, not love for the people involved. As for the beached whale story there is a different thread dealing with this occurence and there are a number of reasonable explanations that have nothing to do with deliberately saving the whale.
http://www.unexplained-mysteries.com/forum...=121212&hl=
As mentioned previously as well, dolphins, especially bottlenose dolphins often display anything but friendly behaviour towards people who think it is a good idea to jump into the water with them to feel the 'special connection'.
To quote another marine biologist on this sort of attitude: While you may want to talk to dolphins, dolphins do not want to talk to you. That's right. Mostly, dolphins want to eat fishes and have sex with other dolphins. And that pretty much cuts you out of the loop, doesn't it?
I personally love dolphins, I have no issues with them or some of their more nasty behaviours, it is one of the things which makes their behaviour interesting to study, what I have an issue with is the inaccurate portrayal of the altruistic human lover that is harmful to both the dolphins and people under this impression as exemplified by these articles:
Dangers to 'friendly' dolphins
Dangers to Moko