Dolphins Essay ⋆ Environment Essay Examples ⋆ EssayEmpire

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Dolphins hav e f igured prominently in society for ages. To the Minoans, as far back as 2000 B.C.E., dolphins were symbols of joy and music. Centuries later, the ancient Greeks and Romans featured dolphins in their mythology, art, and literature. The four extreme points of the Australian continent continue as sacred “dolphin dreaming” sites for aboriginal tribes. In fact, all over the world-Australia, Oceania, China, India, Egypt, and Africa-dolphins often appear in stories of human creation and civilization. In contemporary society, dolphins are likewise ubiquitous in popular media and culture. However, the quantity and quality of society’s encounters with dolphins today are very different from those of the past. Unfortunately, as greater numbers of people inhabit the world’s coastal areas and society intensifies its use of coastal and ocean spaces, dolphins and their habitats are threatened like no time before in history.

Dolphins are aquatic mammals, belonging to the order Cetacea, which is made up of whales, dolphins, and porpoises. Many people are familiar with bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops truncatus), those most often on display at marine parks and aquariums, and the species of dolphin that starred in the Flipper television shows and movies. Actually, there are more than 30 different species of dolphins worldwide. Like humans, all dolphins are highly social and most live in groups, sometimes called “fission/fusion” societies, which range from a few members to thousands. With large brains and a substantial cerebral cortex, it is widely accepted in the scientific community that dolphins have considerable cognitive abilities. They communicate with one another using a complex system of whistles, body language, and touching. Dolphin researchers also agree that dolphins have a rich emotional life, including a sense of humor and distinct personalities, as well as a keen sense of self-awareness.

Thus, dolphins apparently share a suite of attributes with people (many of which were once believed unique to humans), such as intelligence, emotions, and self-awareness. However, dolphins also have inner and outer worlds that are completely foreign to humans. Along with physical attributes that make dolphins marvelously suited for their watery environment, dolphins navigate their world primarily through the use of a sophisticated system of echolocation-a system by which dolphins project sonic “clicks” that return echoes to portray a three-dimensional image of the world around them. As sound passes through living tissues, dolphins routinely “see through” each other and every other living organism. It is perhaps a combination of their familiarity and their exotic other-worldliness that has attracted humans and dolphins to one another throughout the ages.

Most people encounter dolphins today by visiting a zoo or aquarium. In the United States, more than 50 million people are estimated to have visited captive dolphin facilities in 2003, where they spent more than $1 billion. Still, the maintenance of dolphins for public display is among the most controversial of issues relating to dolphins in society today. Depending upon the views and values that people attach to aquariums and the dolphins they hold, people might think of aquariums as amusement parks, public education centers, scientific research sites, conservation centers, or simply as prisons. Essentially, these various ways of thinking about dolphins in society fuel the different arguments that either justify or condemn the practice of keeping dolphins in human care.

Such arguments extend also to various interaction opportunities offered at aquariums today (allowing customers to feed or touch dolphins, for example) as well as swim-with-the-dolphins programs, which began in the late 1980s. Commercial swim-with-the-dolphins programs and related activities also take place with free-ranging dolphins in open waters. While many believe that such activities can be beneficial to both humans and dolphins, others strongly oppose any interaction with wild, free-ranging dolphins and suggest that dolphin viewing from a safe distance is the only appropriate form of dolphin interaction in the wild. Other controversial dolphin-society issues include scientific research involving dolphins, the military’s use of dolphins, dolphin-assisted therapy, rescue and rehabilitation efforts for stranded dolphins, and human interactions with lone sociable dolphins.

Despite the controversy surronding many human-dolphin interaction issues, society’s affection for dolphins certaintly added steam to the burgeoning environmental protection movement of the 1970s, especially as relates to the plight of whales around the world and the public outcry related to dying dolphins in the eastern tropical Pacific Ocean purse-seine fisheries. Indeed, the Marine Mammal Protection Act of 1972-the primary legal vehicle for regulating dolphins and their habitats in the United States-was enacted largely in response to the urgent call by environmental organizations, humane groups, independent scientists, and others to protect whales and dolphins.

Bibliography:

Toni Frohoff and Brenda Peterson, , Between Species: Celebrating the Dolphin–Human Bond (Sierra Club Books, 2003);
Donald R. Griffin, Animal Minds: Beyond Cognition to Consciousness (University of Chicago Press, 2001);
Richard Harrison and Michael Bryden, , Whales, Dolphins and Porpoises (Facts on File, 1994);
Karen Pryor and Ken Norris, eds., Dolphin Societies: Discoveries and Puzzles (University of California Press, 1991);
John E. Reynolds III, Randall S. Wells, and Samantha D. Eide, The Bottlenose Dolphin: Biology and Conservation (University Press of Florida, 2000).