Our scientific understanding of dolphin intelligence may make their capture increasingly morally indefensible, suggest talks to be given to the huge AAAS conference next month.

The meeting – kicking off on 18 February in San Diego – is hosting a session on the ethical and policy implications of dolphin intelligence (initially noted yesterday by the Sunday Times).

In the abstract of her presentation, Lori Marino of Emory University notes that the animals possess a “complex intelligence”. It may be that this should preclude their capture and use in marine park shows and swimming-with-dolphins operations.

“Our current knowledge of dolphin brain complexity and intelligence suggests that these practices are potentially psychologically harmful to dolphins and present a misinformed picture of their natural intellectual capacities,” says Marino.

Another speaker at the meeting, Diana Reiss of Hunter College of the City University of New York, focuses on drive hunts in Japan. “Scientists are making the argument on the basis of the scientific evidence that the drive hunts are unjustifiable and indefensible in that they inflict pain and suffering on animals that are intelligent, sentient, socially complex and have capacity to experience pain and suffering,” says Reiss.

A way forward in our dealings with dolphins is suggested by Thomas White, of Loyola Marymount University. He calls for the development of an “interspecies ethic” for governing relations between people and the “non-human people” that are dolphins.

“Accomplishing this will require considerably more scientific research that demonstrates the cognitive and affective sophistication of dolphins and that uncovers more about the basic conditions that foster the welfare of both individual dolphins and their communities. Yet developing such an ethic could mark a significant turning point in the relationship between humans and other intelligent beings on the planet,” he writes.

Image: NOAA NMFS