What does a child learn from a dolphin show?
They learn that you can reduce the most intelligent species in the ocean, and likely the most emotionally intelligent species on the planet (Oh did you think that was man?…well maybe woman 😉 ), to a beggar on the street.
Remove any woman of her freedom and of her dignity and see what happens to her.
But don’t just do it once. Do it day in and day out. Starve her and reward her with food only when she complies to your commands.
Kill her parents and let her witness the slaughter, then shove her into a net and ship her to a compound where she walks when you say walk.
Remove her capacity to provide for herself, then prostitute her when she comes of age so that you can steal her children before they are even weaned and sell them to another jail…all for human entertainment.
But hang a sec. There’s more!
Dolphins like humans also can reach a point of such utter despair that they commit suicide. They willingly shut off their blowhole and choke themselves to death. It happened to our favourite movie star Flipper.
Was it the fame that got to her?
Did she die of an overdose of painkillers and other prescription meds by accident?
No, it was the prison she was sent to after the show was cancelled. The joys of her life playing with her trainer on set and then watching herself on TV were over. Another diva down! She just couldn’t handle the fall into obscurity and the loss of contact with a dear friend.
Yet at the same time, like humans, dolphins feel empathy for those in trouble and help save lives. What benefit is there to them to protect a pregnant woman from a shark attack?
None! Especially if they are near Japan and The Cove (Oh I am being sneaky here trying to subliminally induce you to click The Cove by repeating the link for The Cove because I linked The Cove in yesterday’s When Dolphins Kill post as well).
The dolphin has a choice to save her own slippery skin and let the shark snack on the human…better her than me, right? Sadly, this is the way humans think not our cetacean friends.
That is the dolphin our children can learn from— the one who roams free for 35 to 40 miles each day, the one who lives free of a daily medicated cocktail used to control behaviour, and the one who is free to experience the future she chooses to.
You’ve probably heard of heroic tales of dogs risking their own lives to save drowning humans. Most of these stories involve a dog and her owner. Would a wild dog or a wolf do the same? Likely not, but a wild dolphin will.
Tales of dolphins saving humans date back to the times of the Ancient Greeks. They were the messengers of Poseidon, the Greek god of the sea, and sometimes did errands for him as well. That is why it was a punishable offense to harm one. But that human compassion eventually died, along with hundreds of thousands of dolphins since then.
Today, as humanity encroaches more and more into dolphin territory and encounters with the wild creatures are becoming more prevalent, we find that the Greek tales were likely not myths or folklore and a resurgence of protective laws is occurring. India recently declared dolphins as non-human persons.
Here is a fantastic video where you can see how magnificent these creatures truly are.
We can learn much from our ocean-going mammalian cousins about empathy and respect for our fellow earthlings and even for ourselves. Please send a dolphin some love and lobby for her release from captivity from your nearest aquarium.
