Dolphin Slaughter Draws Sympathy
Reported and produced by Andres Mendez
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In Washington last September, demonstrators dressed as dolphins marched down Massachusetts Avenue toward the Japanese embassy, chased by protestors carrying a giant net and plastic knives. For the past three years the Animal Welfare Institute has organized the rally in support of dolphins killed off the coast of Japan in the annual drive hunts.
Protestors are outraged by the brutality of the practice. Groups of dolphins are chased into shallow bays where they are corralled, dragged to a dock, and stabbed to death. What is it about dolphins in particular that makes people so sensitive to their suffering? As one Japanese fisherman asks, “You’d think nothing of slicing off a tuna’s head while it was alive, so why the outcry over dolphins?”
Paul Rozin is a professor of psychology at the University of Pennsylvania who studies peoples’ attitudes toward food. He agrees that we don’t perceive all animals to be equal.
“We make all sorts of distinctions among animals. I mean, for most people, cows are meat on the hoof,” Rozin says.
Some people may feel strongly about dolphins because they are mammals. “Many feel some kind of closeness to mammals because we’re one, and also feel that mammals are more like us, more likely to feel pain and so on,” Rozin says.
Like humans, dolphins are intelligent animals that form bonds with each other and live in social groups. When a dolphin is injured, its companions remain next to it.
Smart, Sociable Animals
Peter Singer is an ethicist well known for his positions on animal welfare. He thinks we should consider characteristics such as an animal’s social relationships and intelligence when making decisions about how we treat it.
“If we’re talking about animals that live together socially, they have relationships with each other — particularly mammals will have close relationships, at least between mothers and children — then that makes a difference to the kinds of suffering that are likely to be occurring,” Singer says.
Harming a social animal will cause suffering to its family as well as itself, just as a mother will grieve for her child. An intelligent animal may also feel greater suffering.
“Intelligence may be relevant to greater awareness of what’s happening to them, to greater capacity for fear,” Singer says.
Research on dolphin intelligence has shown advanced cognitive capabilities. Some species teach their young to use tools. Others can even recognize themselves in a mirror, demonstrating an understanding of self-awareness.
In Japan, fears of mercury contamination in dolphin meat have started to turn public opinion against the hunts. “Nothing motivates people quite like a personal incentive,” I joke with Susan Millward, director of the marine mammal program at the Animal Welfare Institute.
“It’s really easy to generalize,” she replies. “But there are some really good people in Japan who we’re working with to try and get this practice stopped. Some people who are opposed to it because of the cruelty… others because of the contamination issue.”
What is Permissible
We may need to ask what it is about ourselves that makes some individuals cry out for dolphins, while for others it’s no big deal.
Our culture is one answer. Historically, humans have been hunters. For the Japanese, hunting dolphin is a traditional practice. But Paul Rozin says the sensibility toward animals is increasing in the population.
“One of the reasons… is affluence, which allows us to find substitutes,” Rozin says. Another is Darwin’s theory of evolution, “which makes us the brothers and sisters of animals.” Finally, he says, there seems to be increasing awareness of “causing pain to other creatures as a moral issue.”
Genetics might also cause us to react differently. Some of us may have brains with a greater sensibility toward suffering.
Our material circumstances also play a role. Some fishermen justify the hunts by citing economic needs. Maybe in some circumstances, this is true, says Peter Singer, but not in an affluent country like Japan.
As a species, we must ultimately decide what acts are permissible. We evolved as hunters, but also as compassionate beings. We must not forget that.
Tags: andres mendez, animals, DC, science desk
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