humankind has felt kinship with whales
and dolphins for centuries all the way
back to the ancient Greeks who
recognized striking similarities between
humans and dolphins and believes that
Apollo the God of Sun would take the
form of a dolphin while on earth and
perhaps these tales of God’s becoming
dolphins led to our present-day
fascination with these ancient relatives
of ours beneath the waves what we see as
their smiling faces their playful
attitudes and their fun-loving attitudes
has made them a very popular choice when
choosing an animal avatar or taking
those online quizzes to tell you what
kind of creature you most resemble he’s
after all who doesn’t want to be the fun
one but the lives of the dolphins that
were seen today and throughout the world
are not always that pure free or as
laid-back as we think they are and our
actions from changing their environment
holding them in captivity to disrupting
their natural behavior and have impact
on these distant relatives that we love
to admire even though we might wish our
lives for life dolphin we remain the
biggest threat to their survival so it’s
no wonder that we feel so close and are
so fascinated by dolphins because we are
at the same we’re both mammals we
breathe air we have hair were
warm-blooded we give birth to a nurse
live young we have similar skeletons
organs brains and hormones that dictate
our moods and direct our emotions and
our reactions we have the same basic
feeds
we need air food shelter and friends and
the biological similarities are not
where the parallels stop just like us
whales and dolphins have unique cultures
long lived and they have complex social
groups they know who their friends are
who their family is and who their rivals
and enemies aren’t they think the plan
they innovate and they feel there’s a
lot more going on underneath the water
than just having fun I work on orcas and
orcas are the largest species of dolphin
and perhaps the most instantly
recognizable type of whale or dolphin
the very well-studied resident orcas of
the eastern North Pacific are one of
just five mammal species known to go
through menopause and have long and rich
post reproductive lives why do humans
share this particular trait with orcas
because our communities are defined by
culture these orcas have very close
family bonds a male and female offspring
actually stay with their mother
throughout their entire life just like
in our multi-generational communities
the older adults play a very important
role in the teaching in the care of the
young grandmothers and older females who
are helping to care for grandchildren
while still having children of their own
have less time and fewer resources to
devote to caring for their entire family
so the grandmother hypothesis thinks
that menopause exists so these
patriarchs can focus on their extended
family and just like in our families
grandmothers have helped with child care
first a party is a general spoiling of
the grandkids so anyone who’s here with
their grandmother today take a minute to
give them a hug so those very close
family bonds mean that when an
individual is lost that is felt deeply
within the family a recent story that
capture cards that headlines around the
world is the tale of a southern resident
Orca which is a critically endangered
population designated j35 and known as
Tahlequah some of you might have seen in
the news
was reported carrying the body of her
newborn daughter who had died shortly
after birth for 17 days and over 1,000
miles while Tahlequah is not the first
she has brought renewed attention to
brief and Wales of dolphins but she is
not the first Orca mother in this
particular population to lose a baby and
experience in six blocks in another
example about eight years ago in 2010 an
orca designated l72 was also seen
carrying the body of her newborn
daughter now some have debated whether
these actions were actually those of a
grieving mother after all we don’t know
what emotions orcas actually feel or
what thoughts occur inside their head
but studies of their brains have shown
that they have an elaborate pair limbic
region which is a part of the brain
associated with sensory processes and
emotion and orcas it’s much larger than
our birds and orcas have an increased
amounts of spindle cells which are
associated with social organization and
empathy so how could we assume that we
are the only ones to feel loved sadness
and emotional pain Tahlequah interrupted
for formal behaviors and actions did not
find food on her own or socialize with
other orcas for 17 days while she
devoted her time to carrying the body of
her daughter and retrieving it each time
it slipped and fell beneath the waves
she inspired people around the world to
reach out and share their own similar
stories of sadness in a box and that
connection between workers and humans
was seen and felt very clearly with her
display of grief these emotions have
been seen in other dolphin species as
well as the sizing the importance of
social bonds and the impacts of loss
most of the interactions have been
between mothers and calves but we’ve
also seen adults mourning nieces and
nephews other closed family members and
even post associates what we would call
friends
just like us whales and dolphins have
very rich and complex social lives and
the dolphins we saw today off Cape May
are one of the most well studied species
and populations that we know live in
these fluids social groups that move
around within their local community like
the resident orcas bottlenose dolphins
typically live in female oriented pods
so male and female offspring stay with
their mother for extended periods of
time and daughters may stay in that
family group for life while sons usually
believe to join bachelor pots male
models dolphins can form very long
lasting partnerships that last for
decades
possibly even their entire lives like
joining a fraternity that you never
forget the secret handshake of these
partnerships usually consist of two or
three males and they may join with other
groups temporarily for a boys night out
and close friendships are reinforced
through constant communication entered
physical contact swimming so closely
together that they touch each other’s
flippers or what we would say is holding
handles that extended time with some mom
and the entire family it means that the
adults play an important role in
teaching the younger members of the
population and in local communities
they’re usually specialized for their
specific area young members in the
population learn everything about how to
be a dolphin in their community from the
older family members they learn what to
eat how to get it who their family is
who their friends are where home is and
who to avoid from the older members of
their family and one of those most
important life lessons to learn is food
the dolphin that we saw earlier were
looking for fish so as we’ve said food
is one of the most important life
lessons that can be learned in any
society human or dolphin for us food is
deeply connected to our family heritage
our history and the regions that we call
home
food it has you know we have our
favorite local restaurants we have
family recipes and a lot of different
traditions associated with food and it’s
no different for dolphins communities
local to specific areas will often have
a favorite food as well as a special
technique to get it so for example one
of those techniques is the bottlenose
dolphins in Shark Bay Australia which
carries sponges on their noses to
protect themselves from rocks Barb’s and
other dangerous items on the ocean floor
while they’re looking for food young
dolphins learned how to do this by
foraging with their mothers it is part
of the culture of the Shark Bay dolphins
in Florida we see dolphins cooperating
to create wombs of sand to trap and
confuse fish there’s a population in
Brazil that has partnered with local
human fishermen to round up fish close
to shore and just down the way in South
Carolina there’s a group that literally
picnics on the beach with their strand
feeding technique where they force fish
into shallow water and very close to
shore the link between all these
different techniques is that they are
learned passed down from mother to young
and in other species we see adults
actually taking the time to teach their
young specific skills Atlantic spotted
dolphins have been seen pointing with
their noses prayed towards calves while
teaching them a specific method called
crater feeding and orcas in the southern
hemisphere in the frozen islands will
help their calves practice intentional
stranding to go on beaches and snatch
seals and will even help their calves
get back in the water if they get stuck
these adults are deliberately taking the
time to make sure the invert generations
has the life skills and the knowledge
needed to survive orcas have to learn
not only what’s on the menu but also how
to get it from the older members of
their family different populations of
orcas actually have dietary
specializations that are so culturally
embedded in
led to the distinction of different eco
types of orcas they are so divided that
they’re like Red Sox and Percy a few
spoons they might live in the same area
but they are fiercely loyal to their
specific team and they very rarely
interact with each other so just as our
identities are formed by our communities
and what we learn from our families our
experiences growing up in the world
around us
dolphins including the different eco
types of orchids and the distinctions
between the coastal bottlenose dolphins
here versus offshore ones that look
further offshore are developed from what
they learn from their families and the
cultural traditions that are passed down
dolphins identify themselves and their
family is also through sound not only
through food but through sound so
bottlenose dolphins the ones we’re
seeing today and at least four other
species have signature whistles that
they use to identify themselves and they
learn the whistles of others in their
group so just as we have names and we
learn the names of voices of people in
our social circles dolphins rely on
sound and identity to form partnerships
to recognize friends family members and
allies and to strengthen social bonds
sound helps to create and maintain
dolphin societies and communication and
just like the regional dialect up in
Massachusetts where WDC is based the
specific New Jersey accent that I have
heard while I’ve been on my visit here
and then the lingo of the west coast
where I’m from Orca communities have
very different ways of vocalizing and
use different acoustics and have calls
that are specific to each family group
you can tell where someone is from based
on their accent the specific words they
use or how they order a soda and
researchers can recognize the calls of
specific Orca families just based on
Carrie
learning what to eat how to get it and
what language to speak are not the only
thing is that like humans to dolphins
humans also play have fun and find joy
in the world around us and dolphins
sometimes do things that look like it’s
just for fun or for sheer joy perhaps
life in humans play and dolphins helps
them to practice skills build muscle
develop cognitive functions and
strengthen social bonds we often see
dolphins bow riding on boats or surfing
in their wake or like the ones we saw
earlier today kind of surfing the top of
the waves this is a fun activity we
don’t really know why they do it and
they actually put themselves at risk
with this activity because they could be
struck by the bow or propellers dolphins
and whales will carry kelp or seaweed on
their heads fins or tails and just like
in human kids young dolphins seemed to
be more playful and curious than adults
jumping and splashing out of the water
far more often and maybe giving their
adult family members a little bit of a
headache with their brain functions
attitude and just like in human society
dolphin communities pick up trends and
fads that can come and go as quickly as
they can in our popular culture I’ll
give you some examples so you might not
see any man buns on dolphin or any
handlebar mustaches but they do come up
with their own phrases in individual
bottlenose dolphin called Billy in
Adelaide Australia learns how to walk on
her tail during a brief day in a
dolphinarium for rehabilitation and
after she was released she continued
this behavior she’s kept tail walking
and was quickly copied by other
individuals in her community the
southern resident orcas started the
trend of wearing salmon hats placing
dead salmon on their heads for a very
brief time
1980s now that trend went out of fashion
pretty quickly in town walking in
Australia is limited to just a select
group of dolphins it looks like it’s
already fanning out so these trends and
fads to come and go just as quickly as
Tamagotchi is or beanie babies in our
societies but one fad that has developed
and stuck around is the beach rubbing
behavior in northern resident orcas
during different population on the west
coast this community has a very specific
family activity where they visit certain
beaches and rub their bodies on these
smooth pebbles that are found there we
don’t know what purpose this behavior
serves or why it’s only seen in the
specific community but it probably act
as a family bonding activity it’s a
social Night Out and it looks like they
just really enjoy it so the more we
learn about whales and dolphins these
unique behaviors the presence of culture
the social learning and what we see is
sadness and joy in their behavior
the stranger it becomes that we actually
pull these individuals captive these are
all parallels to our own intelligence
and our own lives and that connection
between humans and dolphins becomes more
apparent so then we think about the
families that we’ve seen and what
happens and we take these whales and
dolphins out of the water that they are
so perfectly adapted to and put them
into a captive setting where we control
every aspect of their lives local
communities are perfectly adapted to
their specific environment and their
family groups like to be in her cap who
know where to go and where to come back
each year to find this great food
resource here off Cape May display of
whales and dolphins began more than a
hundred years ago when we started taking
them from the wild to hold in captivity
and we still don’t know what the long
lasting impacts were on those can
is that were most heavily targeted it’s
not just about how many were taken but
also about who were taken we’ve talked
about the importance of the elders and
mothers to their the structure of their
population if an individual who is vital
to their social structure or the
survival of their group is removed it
could have long-lasting effect on the
community that we don’t even understand
for example in the Exxon Valdez oil
spill a pod of Alaskan resident orcas
lost their elder females and their
social structure completely upended
after the spill their pod fractured and
they are still recovering today so
public opposition here in the US has
essentially ended the practice of wild
capture and the import of whales and
dolphins but has been caught from the
wild but these activities still occur
overseas orcas and belugas and Russian
waters are still rounded up in Seoul to
marine parks and dolphins from the
infamous Taiji Dr Hubbs and other parts
of the world are as well we are still
learning about the Orca communities in
the western North Pacific where this
occurs and just trying to understand the
impact that these captures have on the
individuals there and there’s often not
enough information about with local
dolphin communities we understand the
Dolphins here in Cape May pretty well
and we know their history but in other
areas we don’t know what kind of groups
they live in or what the impact captures
have on those individuals that are left
behind so the more we find we have in
common with whales and dolphins the more
we begin to question the ethics of
captivity and the more and the harder it
is to find excuses for continued
to hold them captive when we take them
out of the water and we put them in
situations where we control what they
eat and when they sleep perform play and
we control who they do this with we’re
destroying those unique cultures and
communities that were just beginning to
understand they no longer need the
specific feeding techniques that we
talked about and we control their social
groups and who they spend time with and
we forced them to perform tricks for our
entertainment instead of leaping out of
the water just for the joy of it even
those captive born individuals have come
from wild lineages and they may still
have those distinct cultural traits that
have persisted and have attacked down
from mother to young wild traits that
make whales and dolphins for family
unsuited to life and it ain’t so as we
learn more about how much we have in
common with them we work to find
alternatives to think like captivity and
harassment we make an effort not to
disturb them or harass them in a while
by responsible by supporting the
responsible dolphin watching like the
boat that we are on today and Kate may
well watch and we work to find
alternatives to life in a concrete tank
moving captain those individuals out of
out of captivity and then to see
sanctuaries and then think she where is
they can live as close to a normal life
as possible experiencing the waves and
tide chasing fish and finding food
feeling the natural ebb and flow of the
ocean listening to distant sounds they
can choose their own friends they can
avoid their rivals and live on their own
schedules leaping for joy whenever the
mood strikes so instead of idealizing
dolphins and wishing that our lives were
more like these frisky carefree ocean
dwellers we should recognize and embrace
all the things that we already have in
common with them we are already at lunch
the same and that means you’re ever
expected for letting them live
they were meant to wild and free like
the wonderful dog that we’re seeing here
today thank you all [Applause]
and dolphins for centuries all the way
back to the ancient Greeks who
recognized striking similarities between
humans and dolphins and believes that
Apollo the God of Sun would take the
form of a dolphin while on earth and
perhaps these tales of God’s becoming
dolphins led to our present-day
fascination with these ancient relatives
of ours beneath the waves what we see as
their smiling faces their playful
attitudes and their fun-loving attitudes
has made them a very popular choice when
choosing an animal avatar or taking
those online quizzes to tell you what
kind of creature you most resemble he’s
after all who doesn’t want to be the fun
one but the lives of the dolphins that
were seen today and throughout the world
are not always that pure free or as
laid-back as we think they are and our
actions from changing their environment
holding them in captivity to disrupting
their natural behavior and have impact
on these distant relatives that we love
to admire even though we might wish our
lives for life dolphin we remain the
biggest threat to their survival so it’s
no wonder that we feel so close and are
so fascinated by dolphins because we are
at the same we’re both mammals we
breathe air we have hair were
warm-blooded we give birth to a nurse
live young we have similar skeletons
organs brains and hormones that dictate
our moods and direct our emotions and
our reactions we have the same basic
feeds
we need air food shelter and friends and
the biological similarities are not
where the parallels stop just like us
whales and dolphins have unique cultures
long lived and they have complex social
groups they know who their friends are
who their family is and who their rivals
and enemies aren’t they think the plan
they innovate and they feel there’s a
lot more going on underneath the water
than just having fun I work on orcas and
orcas are the largest species of dolphin
and perhaps the most instantly
recognizable type of whale or dolphin
the very well-studied resident orcas of
the eastern North Pacific are one of
just five mammal species known to go
through menopause and have long and rich
post reproductive lives why do humans
share this particular trait with orcas
because our communities are defined by
culture these orcas have very close
family bonds a male and female offspring
actually stay with their mother
throughout their entire life just like
in our multi-generational communities
the older adults play a very important
role in the teaching in the care of the
young grandmothers and older females who
are helping to care for grandchildren
while still having children of their own
have less time and fewer resources to
devote to caring for their entire family
so the grandmother hypothesis thinks
that menopause exists so these
patriarchs can focus on their extended
family and just like in our families
grandmothers have helped with child care
first a party is a general spoiling of
the grandkids so anyone who’s here with
their grandmother today take a minute to
give them a hug so those very close
family bonds mean that when an
individual is lost that is felt deeply
within the family a recent story that
capture cards that headlines around the
world is the tale of a southern resident
Orca which is a critically endangered
population designated j35 and known as
Tahlequah some of you might have seen in
the news
was reported carrying the body of her
newborn daughter who had died shortly
after birth for 17 days and over 1,000
miles while Tahlequah is not the first
she has brought renewed attention to
brief and Wales of dolphins but she is
not the first Orca mother in this
particular population to lose a baby and
experience in six blocks in another
example about eight years ago in 2010 an
orca designated l72 was also seen
carrying the body of her newborn
daughter now some have debated whether
these actions were actually those of a
grieving mother after all we don’t know
what emotions orcas actually feel or
what thoughts occur inside their head
but studies of their brains have shown
that they have an elaborate pair limbic
region which is a part of the brain
associated with sensory processes and
emotion and orcas it’s much larger than
our birds and orcas have an increased
amounts of spindle cells which are
associated with social organization and
empathy so how could we assume that we
are the only ones to feel loved sadness
and emotional pain Tahlequah interrupted
for formal behaviors and actions did not
find food on her own or socialize with
other orcas for 17 days while she
devoted her time to carrying the body of
her daughter and retrieving it each time
it slipped and fell beneath the waves
she inspired people around the world to
reach out and share their own similar
stories of sadness in a box and that
connection between workers and humans
was seen and felt very clearly with her
display of grief these emotions have
been seen in other dolphin species as
well as the sizing the importance of
social bonds and the impacts of loss
most of the interactions have been
between mothers and calves but we’ve
also seen adults mourning nieces and
nephews other closed family members and
even post associates what we would call
friends
just like us whales and dolphins have
very rich and complex social lives and
the dolphins we saw today off Cape May
are one of the most well studied species
and populations that we know live in
these fluids social groups that move
around within their local community like
the resident orcas bottlenose dolphins
typically live in female oriented pods
so male and female offspring stay with
their mother for extended periods of
time and daughters may stay in that
family group for life while sons usually
believe to join bachelor pots male
models dolphins can form very long
lasting partnerships that last for
decades
possibly even their entire lives like
joining a fraternity that you never
forget the secret handshake of these
partnerships usually consist of two or
three males and they may join with other
groups temporarily for a boys night out
and close friendships are reinforced
through constant communication entered
physical contact swimming so closely
together that they touch each other’s
flippers or what we would say is holding
handles that extended time with some mom
and the entire family it means that the
adults play an important role in
teaching the younger members of the
population and in local communities
they’re usually specialized for their
specific area young members in the
population learn everything about how to
be a dolphin in their community from the
older family members they learn what to
eat how to get it who their family is
who their friends are where home is and
who to avoid from the older members of
their family and one of those most
important life lessons to learn is food
the dolphin that we saw earlier were
looking for fish so as we’ve said food
is one of the most important life
lessons that can be learned in any
society human or dolphin for us food is
deeply connected to our family heritage
our history and the regions that we call
home
food it has you know we have our
favorite local restaurants we have
family recipes and a lot of different
traditions associated with food and it’s
no different for dolphins communities
local to specific areas will often have
a favorite food as well as a special
technique to get it so for example one
of those techniques is the bottlenose
dolphins in Shark Bay Australia which
carries sponges on their noses to
protect themselves from rocks Barb’s and
other dangerous items on the ocean floor
while they’re looking for food young
dolphins learned how to do this by
foraging with their mothers it is part
of the culture of the Shark Bay dolphins
in Florida we see dolphins cooperating
to create wombs of sand to trap and
confuse fish there’s a population in
Brazil that has partnered with local
human fishermen to round up fish close
to shore and just down the way in South
Carolina there’s a group that literally
picnics on the beach with their strand
feeding technique where they force fish
into shallow water and very close to
shore the link between all these
different techniques is that they are
learned passed down from mother to young
and in other species we see adults
actually taking the time to teach their
young specific skills Atlantic spotted
dolphins have been seen pointing with
their noses prayed towards calves while
teaching them a specific method called
crater feeding and orcas in the southern
hemisphere in the frozen islands will
help their calves practice intentional
stranding to go on beaches and snatch
seals and will even help their calves
get back in the water if they get stuck
these adults are deliberately taking the
time to make sure the invert generations
has the life skills and the knowledge
needed to survive orcas have to learn
not only what’s on the menu but also how
to get it from the older members of
their family different populations of
orcas actually have dietary
specializations that are so culturally
embedded in
led to the distinction of different eco
types of orcas they are so divided that
they’re like Red Sox and Percy a few
spoons they might live in the same area
but they are fiercely loyal to their
specific team and they very rarely
interact with each other so just as our
identities are formed by our communities
and what we learn from our families our
experiences growing up in the world
around us
dolphins including the different eco
types of orchids and the distinctions
between the coastal bottlenose dolphins
here versus offshore ones that look
further offshore are developed from what
they learn from their families and the
cultural traditions that are passed down
dolphins identify themselves and their
family is also through sound not only
through food but through sound so
bottlenose dolphins the ones we’re
seeing today and at least four other
species have signature whistles that
they use to identify themselves and they
learn the whistles of others in their
group so just as we have names and we
learn the names of voices of people in
our social circles dolphins rely on
sound and identity to form partnerships
to recognize friends family members and
allies and to strengthen social bonds
sound helps to create and maintain
dolphin societies and communication and
just like the regional dialect up in
Massachusetts where WDC is based the
specific New Jersey accent that I have
heard while I’ve been on my visit here
and then the lingo of the west coast
where I’m from Orca communities have
very different ways of vocalizing and
use different acoustics and have calls
that are specific to each family group
you can tell where someone is from based
on their accent the specific words they
use or how they order a soda and
researchers can recognize the calls of
specific Orca families just based on
Carrie
learning what to eat how to get it and
what language to speak are not the only
thing is that like humans to dolphins
humans also play have fun and find joy
in the world around us and dolphins
sometimes do things that look like it’s
just for fun or for sheer joy perhaps
life in humans play and dolphins helps
them to practice skills build muscle
develop cognitive functions and
strengthen social bonds we often see
dolphins bow riding on boats or surfing
in their wake or like the ones we saw
earlier today kind of surfing the top of
the waves this is a fun activity we
don’t really know why they do it and
they actually put themselves at risk
with this activity because they could be
struck by the bow or propellers dolphins
and whales will carry kelp or seaweed on
their heads fins or tails and just like
in human kids young dolphins seemed to
be more playful and curious than adults
jumping and splashing out of the water
far more often and maybe giving their
adult family members a little bit of a
headache with their brain functions
attitude and just like in human society
dolphin communities pick up trends and
fads that can come and go as quickly as
they can in our popular culture I’ll
give you some examples so you might not
see any man buns on dolphin or any
handlebar mustaches but they do come up
with their own phrases in individual
bottlenose dolphin called Billy in
Adelaide Australia learns how to walk on
her tail during a brief day in a
dolphinarium for rehabilitation and
after she was released she continued
this behavior she’s kept tail walking
and was quickly copied by other
individuals in her community the
southern resident orcas started the
trend of wearing salmon hats placing
dead salmon on their heads for a very
brief time
1980s now that trend went out of fashion
pretty quickly in town walking in
Australia is limited to just a select
group of dolphins it looks like it’s
already fanning out so these trends and
fads to come and go just as quickly as
Tamagotchi is or beanie babies in our
societies but one fad that has developed
and stuck around is the beach rubbing
behavior in northern resident orcas
during different population on the west
coast this community has a very specific
family activity where they visit certain
beaches and rub their bodies on these
smooth pebbles that are found there we
don’t know what purpose this behavior
serves or why it’s only seen in the
specific community but it probably act
as a family bonding activity it’s a
social Night Out and it looks like they
just really enjoy it so the more we
learn about whales and dolphins these
unique behaviors the presence of culture
the social learning and what we see is
sadness and joy in their behavior
the stranger it becomes that we actually
pull these individuals captive these are
all parallels to our own intelligence
and our own lives and that connection
between humans and dolphins becomes more
apparent so then we think about the
families that we’ve seen and what
happens and we take these whales and
dolphins out of the water that they are
so perfectly adapted to and put them
into a captive setting where we control
every aspect of their lives local
communities are perfectly adapted to
their specific environment and their
family groups like to be in her cap who
know where to go and where to come back
each year to find this great food
resource here off Cape May display of
whales and dolphins began more than a
hundred years ago when we started taking
them from the wild to hold in captivity
and we still don’t know what the long
lasting impacts were on those can
is that were most heavily targeted it’s
not just about how many were taken but
also about who were taken we’ve talked
about the importance of the elders and
mothers to their the structure of their
population if an individual who is vital
to their social structure or the
survival of their group is removed it
could have long-lasting effect on the
community that we don’t even understand
for example in the Exxon Valdez oil
spill a pod of Alaskan resident orcas
lost their elder females and their
social structure completely upended
after the spill their pod fractured and
they are still recovering today so
public opposition here in the US has
essentially ended the practice of wild
capture and the import of whales and
dolphins but has been caught from the
wild but these activities still occur
overseas orcas and belugas and Russian
waters are still rounded up in Seoul to
marine parks and dolphins from the
infamous Taiji Dr Hubbs and other parts
of the world are as well we are still
learning about the Orca communities in
the western North Pacific where this
occurs and just trying to understand the
impact that these captures have on the
individuals there and there’s often not
enough information about with local
dolphin communities we understand the
Dolphins here in Cape May pretty well
and we know their history but in other
areas we don’t know what kind of groups
they live in or what the impact captures
have on those individuals that are left
behind so the more we find we have in
common with whales and dolphins the more
we begin to question the ethics of
captivity and the more and the harder it
is to find excuses for continued
to hold them captive when we take them
out of the water and we put them in
situations where we control what they
eat and when they sleep perform play and
we control who they do this with we’re
destroying those unique cultures and
communities that were just beginning to
understand they no longer need the
specific feeding techniques that we
talked about and we control their social
groups and who they spend time with and
we forced them to perform tricks for our
entertainment instead of leaping out of
the water just for the joy of it even
those captive born individuals have come
from wild lineages and they may still
have those distinct cultural traits that
have persisted and have attacked down
from mother to young wild traits that
make whales and dolphins for family
unsuited to life and it ain’t so as we
learn more about how much we have in
common with them we work to find
alternatives to think like captivity and
harassment we make an effort not to
disturb them or harass them in a while
by responsible by supporting the
responsible dolphin watching like the
boat that we are on today and Kate may
well watch and we work to find
alternatives to life in a concrete tank
moving captain those individuals out of
out of captivity and then to see
sanctuaries and then think she where is
they can live as close to a normal life
as possible experiencing the waves and
tide chasing fish and finding food
feeling the natural ebb and flow of the
ocean listening to distant sounds they
can choose their own friends they can
avoid their rivals and live on their own
schedules leaping for joy whenever the
mood strikes so instead of idealizing
dolphins and wishing that our lives were
more like these frisky carefree ocean
dwellers we should recognize and embrace
all the things that we already have in
common with them we are already at lunch
the same and that means you’re ever
expected for letting them live
they were meant to wild and free like
the wonderful dog that we’re seeing here
today thank you all [Applause]
Please follow and like us: