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Oslo - Whales and dolphins should get "human rights" to life and liberty because of mounting evidence of their intelligence, a group of conservationists and experts in philosophy, law and ethics said on Sunday.
Japan, Norway and Iceland, the main whaling nations, oppose such arguments that would outlaw hunting or even keeping the mammals in marine parks. They have long said there is no real evidence that they are smarter, for instance, than cows or pigs.
Participants at a University of Helsinki conference said ever more studies show the giant marine mammals have human-like self-awareness, an ability to communicate and organize complex societies, making them similar to some great apes.
"We affirm that all cetaceans as persons have the right to life, liberty and wellbeing," they said in a declaration after a two-day meeting led by the Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society (WDCS).
Thomas White, director of the Center for Ethics and Business at Loyola Marymount University in California who was at the Helsinki talks, said dolphins can recognize themselves in a mirror, an ability rare in mammals that humans only acquire at about 18 months of age.
"Whaling is ethically unacceptable," he told Reuters. "They have a sense of self that we used to think that only human beings have."
Hal Whitehead, a biology professor at Dalhousie University in Canada and an expert on deep-water whales, said there was more evidence that whales have human-like culture.
He said that sperm whales have sonars to find fish that are so powerful that they could permanently deafen others nearby if used at full blast. Yet the whales do not use sonars as weapons, showing what Whitehead called a human-like "sense of morality".
"It's like a group of human hunters armed with guns," he told Reuters. "There's a clear sense of how the sonar can be used."
Nations in the International Whaling Commission will debate a proposal to approve limited hunts for 10 years by the main whaling nations at a meeting next month, relaxing a 1986 moratorium imposed after many species came close to extinction.
"We want a shift to putting the individual at the center of conservation," said Nicholas Entrup, of the WDCS.
That would mean giving minke whales, relatively plentiful and most often hunted, the same protection as endangered northern right whales.
But one expert biologist, who was not at the conference, said many researchers had wrongly concluded that whales and dolphins were smart because they have big brains.
"There's nothing to separate them from other mammals - seals, lions or tigers," Paul Manger of Johannesburg's University of Witwatersrand, told Reuters. They had evolved big brains largely to keep warm in the chill waters.
Saying whales were not especially bright was not the same as advocating hunts, he said.
"We protect fish stocks even though no one argues that they are intelligent," he said. - Reuters
[URL]http://www.iol.co.za/index.php?set_id=1&click_id=31&art_id=nw20100523131150229C882900[/URL]
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The debate continues.
Wouldn't they be dolphin rights?
Haha sperm whales are found at full blast
:smug:
No, they shouldn't have human rights, they are not human.
And they're tasty.
:patriot:I think that they should have rights, not like human rights, but the ability to not be mutalated and eaten
Dolphins have the right to freedom of speech.
I just had the image of dolphins in suits going to court.
If you give human rights to one mammal, give them to all.
[QUOTE=ExplodingGuy;22442044]If you give human rights to one mammal, give them to all.[/QUOTE]
These are the only swimming ocean mamals
I say we ship all the tree-huggers and eco-freaks to the north pole with all thier dolphins and whales and stuff like that and let them live on thier own...and then nuke them.
Fuck dolphins and whales, they taste good.
Calling them "human rights" is poorly wording a situation. Why not just elevate whales and dolphins to the level cats and dogs are at now? "Too cute to kill."
They are pretty rare and endangered. They should be protected somehow better than they are now, but "human rights" to animals sounds ridiculous.
[QUOTE=Neinman;22442063]I say we ship all the tree-huggers and eco-freaks to the north pole with all thier dolphins and whales and stuff like that and let them live on thier own...and then nuke them.[/QUOTE]
[img]http://farm4.static.flickr.com/3015/3128676813_120f8ee156.jpg[/img]
[QUOTE=Omali;22442086]Calling them "human rights" is poorly wording a situation.[/QUOTE]
Yeah, they might get offended, otherwise.
There's a reason we call them HUMAN rights you tits.
[QUOTE=Omali;22442086]Calling them "human rights" is poorly wording a situation. Why not just elevate whales and dolphins to the level cats and dogs are at now? "Too cute to kill."[/QUOTE]
I agree that they worded it badly with the "Human rights", but they just mean the right to life and liberty. AKA, not being hunted and kept in captivity.
Where's GreenDolphin at?
Will they be given the right to vote as well?
Dolphins with the same rights as us eh? I just had a mental image of a cop reading Miranda Rights to a dolphin who stole some food.
Sure, they're intelligent, but are they sapient? I dunno if they can use tools or bury their dead, but if they could they'd probably qualify. Give them a few more millennia to develop to that level, but in the meantime the "human rights" could help them survive to reach that stage.
Probably should rename it "people's rights" or whatever if and when another sentience crosses our path.
[QUOTE=rapperkid04;22442149]Will they be given the right to vote as well?[/QUOTE]
No. They live in the ocean anyways, they wouldn't be voting for anything because they don't live within a country. Unless you wanted to get really deep and let the ones in aquariums and off the coast vote, but that would just be silly.
Sqwwk
Fuck that, I want those fatties and rapists to go extinct.
[url]http://www.milkandcookies.com/link/61945/detail/[/url] I think this is relevant
Standard animal rights should apply to them as they are not human, so no.
Blame japan for whales and dolphins getting brutally murdered
[B]Human[/B] rights? Haha. No.
[QUOTE=OvB;22442190]No. They live in the ocean anyways, they wouldn't be voting for anything because they don't live within a country. Unless you wanted to get really deep and let the ones in aquariums and off the coast vote, but that would just be silly.[/QUOTE]
Aye, they're a separate "ethnicity", to use the closest word I can think to describe them in social terms.
If they were taught things that humans were, then they'd probably be near our level. But if they had arms like us, with dextrous hands, then the chance of them being able to form structures, and villages, would be slightly higher.
Nope, I'm a supporter of controlled whaling.
"Human rights" is a bad word for it.
I think they should be given the common courtesy of not be slaughtered. If they do [I]need[/I] to be killed (say, as a source of food for northern inuit tribes) then that should be done respectfully, with discretion.
It just bothers me to see giant floating slaughterhouses going around butchering whales like they are cattle, and pouring their bloody refuse back into the ocean.
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