Dolphins to the rescue

[Catherine]

We owe a lot to Dolphins. They have been helping us for years.
This story is of a wonderful rescue.




Dolphins rescued a dog.




It is nice to know that we sometimes return the favour.




This is the next logical step.
Dolphin rights!
http://www.takepart.com/photos/declarati...tro%20size

Maybe some day.

[Cibach]

There is a school of thought that suggests that dolphins may be more intelligent than humans. Weight for weight, if you strip away the extra "blubber" they have for insulation, dolphins' brains are actually bigger than humans.
Also they are so well adapted to their environment that they have a good deal of "free" time which allows them to play and explore.
I have often wondered how well we would fare in a Dolphin's "Humanarium".

[LPC]

Yes, indeed! See, for example http://curiosity.discovery.com/question/...man-brains

And - I'm not joking - it may not be long before we will use Google Translate to understand dolphin communication:

http://www.newscientist.com/article/mg22...puter.html

[Tobi]

The Dolphins showed so much compassion and care for those dogs. Without their help, the dogs would have surely drowned, and the dolphins knew that, and knew exactly what to do to rescue them. That -to me, is intelligence.

I would very much love to hear what the dolphins might say! And it seems that day isn't so far off. The article is fascinating, LPC.

[Catherine]

Wouldn't that be fantastic if we could really talk to Dolphins. For one thing we could finally say thank you for all their help.

Dolphins are intelligent. We just have not learned how to test it. Intelligence is very hard to measure. Most tests are developed in a context. Any human who is not from that background does not do as well as their intelligence warrants.
How on earth do we think we can test Dolphins.

Observing and learning to talk with them would be a good place to start. Maybe we are not number one.

[Catherine]

This is wonderful. I shows that orphaned killer whales can be rehabilitated to the wild just like baby birds are. Every year wildlife centers return animals to the wild. They raise them to be wild and set them free. Why do we think that it is better to put a baby killer whale in an amusement park.
I for one am not amused.
I am sure we can rehabilitate dolphins and any other marine mammal and then set them free.

Interesting that the pod accepted the baby back after 6 months. They had not forgotten her.