General Discussion
Related: Editorials & Other Articles, Issue Forums, Alliance Forums, Region ForumsIndia Declares Dolphins "Non-Human Persons", Dolphin shows BANNED.
Amazing, overlooked news from several months ago out of India.
Indias Ministry of Environment and Forests has decided to forbid the keeping of captive dolphins for public entertainment anywhere in the country.
In a policy statement released Friday, the ministry advised state governments to reject any proposal to establish a dolphinarium by any person / persons, organizations, government agencies, private or public enterprises that involves import, capture of cetacean species to establish for commercial entertainment, private or public exhibition and interaction purposes whatsoever.
Why?
Whereas cetaceans in general are highly intelligent and sensitive, and various scientists who have researched dolphin behavior have suggested that the unusually high intelligence; as compared to other animals means that dolphins should be seen as non-human persons and as such should have their own specific rights and is morally unacceptable to keep them captive for entertainment purpose, the ministry said.
I was surprised to read about this the other night, since it happened back in May and somehow escaped worldwide attention and the 24 hour media hoopla. The effort to re-categorize Cetaceans (dolphins, whales, porpoises) as non-human persons has been gathering steam since a meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science in 2011 where a group of philosophers, conservationists, and animal behaviorists attempted to gather wide support for a Declaration of Rights for Cetaceans from the scientific community.
The Declaration:
1. Every individual cetacean has the right to life.
2. No cetacean should be held in captivity or servitude; be subject to cruel treatment; or be removed from their natural environment.
3. All cetaceans have the right to freedom of movement and residence within their natural environment.
4. No cetacean is the property of any State, corporation, human group or individual.
5. Cetaceans have the right to the protection of their natural environment.
6. Cetaceans have the right not to be subject to the disruption of their cultures.
7. The rights, freedoms and norms set forth in this Declaration should be protected under international and domestic law.
And what does it mean to say an animal has "rights"?
Unlike[...] positive rights, such as the 'right' to education or health care, the animal right is, at bottom, a right to be left alone. It does not call for government to tax us in order to provide animals with food, shelter, and veterinary care. It only requires us to stop killing them and making them suffer.
Seems reasonable enough. Considering dolphin intelligence has been long been established, this declaration doesn't seem to be a particularly radical move. They exhibit self-awareness, use tools, cooperate to solve tasks, don't vote Republican, and very recently it was found that they possibly communicate to each other using individual names. The major real world implications of declaring them non-human persons would be the closing of dolphin and orca shows at marine parks, setting them free from aquariums and zoos, and a prohibition against kills, such as the one documented in Academy Award winning movie The Cove.
Of course, the biggest implication is the whole idea of creating a new category of non-human persons. Do we stop at dolphins and whales? And, if not, where do we draw the line? Once we give rights to some animals how do we justify our continued exploitation of others
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2013/07/30/1226634/-India-Declares-Dolphins-Non-Human-Persons-Dolphin-shows-BANNED
Control-Z
(15,682 posts)K&R
Response to Control-Z (Reply #1)
Cetacea This message was self-deleted by its author.
G_j
(40,367 posts)n2doc
(47,953 posts)I won't hold my breath. I'm sure Seaworld and the other entertainment dolphin jailers have their lobbyists working overtime.
Katashi_itto
(10,175 posts)Money talks to loudly in the US
Hydra
(14,459 posts)Hopefully we can expand this to stop whale hunting and keeping dolphins in the military and such.
Animals are people too. Would be nice if we can get to the point of seeing them as such in an official way.
MoonRiver
(36,926 posts)I think the EU is about to ban cetacean shows also. I do think this will happen worldwide soon.
Liberal_in_LA
(44,397 posts)Puzzledtraveller
(5,937 posts)DLevine
(1,788 posts)BrotherIvan
(9,126 posts)They're smarter than we are because they don't kill their own habitat and they definitely have more fun.
dipsydoodle
(42,239 posts)They have aspirations of being in a dolphin boy band.
BrotherIvan
(9,126 posts)They laugh at us like mountains.
Cetacea
(7,367 posts)Nice OP, but the video and narrative is idiotic. We need to stop referring to them as animals (yes, humans are animals, too. But do we not mostly refer to each other as "animals" when we are angry?)
"Wonderful creatures". Another fave.
Tired of seeing the same old rehashed bs. Bright fish. Can they think? Can they learn? "The building blocks of a language" .
Give me a friggin' break. Have another fish, dumbed down America.
The scientific community ridiculed the man who discovered all of this in the late 1950s. Even the recent "discovery" that dolphins address each other by individual names was a rehash of one of his many early discoveries.
Sadly, the people who have the most data on dolphins are not sharing it with us. It is Classified information and has been since the early 1970s.
And the best way to a dolphins heart is not through his stomach, it's through his/her mind. The video does not mention that they sometimes throw the fish back at the trainers...
end of rant.
Cetacea
(7,367 posts)And that forty percent is in the same are that distinguishes humans from the primates..
LongTomH
(8,636 posts)NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)napkinz
(17,199 posts)nt
roamer65
(36,745 posts)NuclearDem
(16,184 posts)LongTomH
(8,636 posts)A few of my friends have said they can see things from the viewpoint of the Orca. If someone kept them in captivity and forced them to do pointless tricks to entertain a bunch of apes, they might be tempted to chow down on their handlers.
Blackfish is currently playing at some art-house theaters around the country. See if you can see things from the orca's standpoint after watching it.