On July 7th the
concluding day of World
Week for Captive Dolphins July 1-7th
Cetacea
Defence is pleased to announce a new and
unique companion site:
www.animalslavery.net
This ride was to highlight the death of dolphins in fishing nets in
2002
Alan meets Kevin
Philips,
goalkeeper for Manchester City Football Club,
headlines in local paper:
"City goalie keeps balls out of nets,
meets campaigner trying to keep dolphins out"
Wednesday July 4 - 7 th World Day For Captive
Dolphins
demo
in front of Japanese embassy by Sea mammal Support
group
PHOTO: Damian Sidnell; dolphins in Cardigan Bay Calf and
Mother
VIDEO
BY CETACEA
DEFENCE
http://www.seashepherd.org/ocean_realm/ocean_realm_aut97.html
Dolphins
Dumb? Scientist is Dumber.
August
21, 2006
Commentary
by Captain Paul Watson
The story about Dolphins being stupid has spread
suspiciously around the global media this week-end. Seems like the
Japanese public relations firms were working overtime on this
one.
Apparently some scientist out to make a name for himself from
the University of Witwatersrand in South Africa has proclaimed
that dolphins are dumb. In fact this academic Yoda has even gone as
far to say that lab rats and goldfish are smarter than
dolphins.
Manger’s primary observable evidence is that dolphins don’t jump
out of nets or over screens in their pools.
According to neuroethologist, Paul Manger, the large brain of
a dolphin and whale is used more as an internal head warmer than
for thinking. Yea right!!!!!
I guess all the world’s great cetologists just have no idea what
they are talking about. At least according to Manger who claims to
know a thing or two about brains but apparently knows very little
about dolphins.
The problem with this study is that it is a simplistic and there is
a complete lack of inclusion of decades of observable behaviour in
dolphins and whales that contradicts everything that Manger is
saying.
I have spent decades observing, swimming with, and studying
dolphins and whales and to suggest that these animals are not
intelligent is absurd. Manger should get out of his academic
fantasy land and go to sea – he might learn something.
Anyone who knows anything about dolphins and whales knows that the
conclusion of this "study" is wrong. Manger has a theory and it is
a half-baked theory at that.
I would be interested in seeing where the research money for this
latest dolphin defamation piece originated from? Japan
maybe?
According to Manger, "We equate our big brain with intelligence.
Over the years we have looked at these kinds of things and said the
dolphins must be intelligent," The real flaw in this logic is that
it suggests all brains are built the same ... When you look at the
structure of the dolphin brain you see it is not built for complex
information processing," he told Reuters in an interview.
Dolphins are widely regarded as one of the smartest mammals and
this common knowledge is not challenged by Manger, whose
peer-reviewed research on the subject has been published in
Biological Reviews of the Cambridge Philosophical Society, "but the
reality is different."
Brains, he says, are made of neurons and glia. The latter create
the environment for the neurons to work properly and producing heat
is one of glia's functions.
"Dolphins have a super-abundance of glia and very few neurons ...
The dolphin's brain is not made for information processing — it is
designed to counter the thermal challenges of being a mammal in
water," Manger said.
Manger said observed behavior supports his iconoclastic take on
dolphins as dimwits.
If
this is true than the only dolphins that Manger has been observing
must have had lobotomies.
"You put an animal in a box, even a lab rat or gerbil, and the
first thing it wants to do is climb out of it. If you don't put a
lid on top of the bowl a goldfish it will eventually jump out to
enlarge the environment it is living in," he said.
"But a dolphin will never do that. In the marine parks the dividers
to keep the dolphins apart are only a foot or two above the water
between the different pools," he said.
Why not? Because, Manger says, the thought would simply not cross
their unsophisticated minds.
The reason that dolphins do not jump out of a pool is that there is
nowhere to jump to. If there is a panel placed across the pool, the
dolphin has no way of knowing what is above the water on the other
side. Dolphins will not jump into an area unless they know what is
on the other side. A fish will. Manger turns this around to suggest
that fish are smarter than dolphins.
If a goldfish jumps out of its bowl it dies - that is NOT
intelligent behaviour. A dolphin knows this.
As for jumping out of a tuna net, the dolphin has the same problem.
The dolphin cannot see beyond the net. Would a human being jump
over a wall not knowing what is on the other side? Certainly not an
intelligent human being.
The other factor is that dolphins will not abandon their young and
their pod by jumping out of the net. Dolphins have demonstrated
extreme concern for the welfare of their own in times of
danger.
Manger’s theory that big brains keep cetaceans warm is ridiculous.
Walrus, Manatees, leopard seals, stellar sea lions and polar bears
are big mammals that spend time in cold waters yet they have not
developed such a large sophisticated brain.
One sign that dolphins and whales are smarter than people is that
they are not busy destroying the planet they live on like one so
called “intelligent” primate that we all
know.
Permission
by the author to be freely distributed and
published
See:
Perceptions of Intelligence by Captain Paul Watson at:
http://www.seashepherd.org/ocean_realm/ocean_realm_aut97.html
Captain
Paul Watson
Founder
and President of the Sea Shepherd Conservation Society (1977-
Co-Founder - The Greenpeace Foundation (1972)
Co-Founder - Greenpeace International (1979)
Director of the Sierra Club USA (2003-2006)
Director - The Farley Mowat Institute
"Sail
forth - steer for the deep waters only,
Reckless O soul, exploring, I with thee and thou with me,
For we are bound where mariner has not yet dared to go,
And we will risk the ship, ourselves and all."
- Walt Whitman
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National Geographic