Dolphin Friendly?

This makes me sick… I just don’t understand the need to do this:

ananova.com/news/story/sm_833468.html

You’re right Tigerman. That is truly revolting. In fact, I find the slaughter of any animals for pleasure (recreational or culinary) revolting.

Brian

Agreed. Barbaric. Your comment Bu reminds me of a kid I once rented a room to in my house in California. He came from divorced blue-collar parents and liked huntin’ fishin’ and trucks. One evening he told me he had spent the day with a friend shooting at sea lions with his gun, for the supposed reason that they’re no good cuz they eat the salmon. I expect he is behind bars by now for acts committed against people.

I find this revolting and sick, as well.

[Edited by moderator - I took out the bestiality link on how to have sex with dolphins, because it’s probably illegal. If you want to find it, do a search]

How some people get their kicks… :blush: :blush: :blush:

yes Mod Lang… very sick, though there is some useful advice contained within.

peritonitus-- this guy’s done his homework.

please tell me the dolphin sex thing is a joke. please.

Equally vile is the selling of dolphin and Whale shark flesh here in Taiwan.

I was waytching the Chinese news sometime back and the plods had nabbed a van with a load of dolphins in the back. They had footage, which I’ll never forget, showing them cut in half.

I saw whale shark meat for sale in a fish market in Nan Ao last year. I asked the chap, in a round about way as I wasn’t sure of the legality or the proper term, sure enough it was. Had to stop myself from giving him a bollocking (he was gutting a bloody great fish with an awesome blade at the time, so actually it wasn’t that difficult).

HG

On the subject of dolphin sex, Philip K. Dick, the famous sci-fi author who wrote the book that Blade Runner is based on included a very erotic passage on a woman doing dolphins in The Man in the High Castle.

That perotinitis thing . . .

http://www.sexwork.com/family/dolphinrape.html

Swimmers warned to avoid horny dolphin
(June 4, 2002) In the UK, tourists enjoying the waters off Dorset have been warned to beware of a horny dolphin named George, who arrived in the area about two months ago. “This dolphin does get very sexually aggressive. He has already attempted to mate with some divers,” said Ric O’Barry, a marine mammal expert who warned that “dolphins are wild animals and get very rough with one another when they mate. They can weigh up to 400lb and someone could easily drown under the sheer weight.”[url]

timesonline.co.uk/article/0, … 59,00.html[/url]

HG

Then of course there are the terrible things people do to vegetables. Why, just last night, someone offered me some FRIED ZUCCHINI! Breaded! The barbarian!

OTOH, a sysop on one of the early public-access internet sites had a whole series of photos of his wife engaging in mating activities with vegetables online. I must say, those were some lucky cucumbers.

Tigerman,

What upsets you most about this story? The vivid pictures of blood-filled coves? That the dolphin is considered to be among the most intelligent animals? That these animals had been free, not farmed?

I ask because I know so many people who have no qualms about eating pork, beef or chicken, but who are outraged that someone could eat a dog. When I ask them what’s the difference between eating dog meat and these other meats, some of them say, “Dogs are pets!” Some of them say that it’s the way that dogs are killed, that is, they are beaten slowly to death (meaning it’s okay to eat them so long as those dogs are humanely slaughtered). And some of them say that it just “feels” wrong to eat a dog (that is, they did not grow up in a culture that eats dogs). Then of course you have people who don’t eat any meat, so their reasons are obvious. So, the range of explanations for not eating dog meat is quite broad. I imagine the range of reasons for outrage over the killing of these dolphins is also broad, hence my question.

[quote=“HakkaSonic”]Tigerman,

What upsets you most about this story?[/quote]

This has been discussed before, but I don’t remember which thread.

I am upset at the killing of dolphins because I believe that they are indeed intelligent creatures… perhaps more intelligent than humans (who’s to say… they understand us… we don’t understand them)…

Because in addition to being intelligent (because I know that pigs are smarter than dogs), they are also very friendly to humans, and there are many stories of dolphins saving humans (this is also whay I don’t like the practice of eating dogs… dogs have for thousands of years been friends with man)…

Because there are plenty of alternative food sources… I just don’t see the need to kill such wonderful creatures for food (or any other reason).

No doubt many can raise arguments and or point to logical inconsistencies in my reasons above… But that is how I feel about this issue.

Can you imagine a pod of dolphins rounding up human swimmers and pounding them to death with their snouts?

You could say that chickens, hogs or cattle would not likely kill humans either… but would chickens, hogs or cows come to the rescue of a human in distress? Dolphins and dogs do just that.

I think the word “feel” hits the nail on the head. There is a lot of logical inconsistency in people’s arguments for not eating dog meat or for not killing dolphins. And there are so many angles to consider. To take one example, I know one guy who thinks that it’s only moral for people to eat meat that they themselves have killed in the wild (he fishes and hunts). His argument is that these animals have a “fighting chance” (I guess the squirrels also have rifles where he lives) and can escape, unlike a veal calf or a caged chicken. I haven’t talked to him about this dolphin story, but no doubt he would say that the killing of those dolphins was a more humane way of acquiring meat than is raising animals on farms. Anyway, it’s lunch time, I think I’ll opt for tofu today…

Well, actually, scientists are to say. David Brin has a rather good bit on what he calls the “Dogma of Otherness” in his collection, coincidentally titled Otherness, in which he discusses just this point. To summarize, although all sorts of people wax poetic about how dolphins must be brilliant-but-misunderstood geniuses, they’re not. They’re just cute, and so people jump around and wave their arms in defense of the dumb sea critters.

Which is not to say that they’re not cute, should be wantonly (or wontonly) slaughtered, whatever. They’re just not all that bright. Yet.

That’s only because you never hear from the people whom packs of sex-starved dolphins shoved underwater and mated with until they drowned.

Well, they’d probably just force the humans underwater until they’d gasped their last gasp.

And then there was the kangaroo who rescued a farmer from the storm a few months ago, and the horse who carried his rider home even though the rider was drunk as a skunk, and. . . .

Yet kangaroo sausage is widely available (and they’re sooooooooo cute!) and horses are turned into glue and dogfood.

Ok, ok. You like dolphins. Me too. Fair enough.

Tigerman, your idea of “friendly, understanding” dolphins is a common misperception rooted in the old stories of Perilous Jack, dolphins you can pet at the beach somewhere in Oz, Flipper, etc., although there seems no doubt that they are highly intelligent and certainly can be trained to work for humans. It is extremely unwise to approach wild dolphins in the open sea, however, as any experienced diver will tell you – you’d stand a good chance of being attacked.
After all, no one would describe sharks as friendly, yet there are places you can go in Barbados (or maybe its the Bahamas?) and “play with the sharks.”
As for the slaughter fest on that website, it looks gruesome, but its nothing compared to what I saw in the Faeroe Islands, where the fishermen do the same thing with pilot whales, except they use an entire bay, not just a little cove.
What I object to is the fact that the custom is continued even though its no longer necessary – these people at one time depended on the annual slaughter in order to ensure their survival, which of course is no longer the case.
However, it is selective – striped dolphin and pilot whales are not endangered. I object far more strongly to drift netting, which is still done by fishermen of most nations and kills far, far more dolphins and other marine mammals than these Japanese villagers could ever conceive of.
And I also have no time for the feelings of people who would protect animals because of their “cuteness” factor – life is life and if one considers it sacred, one should not be making distinctions based on the fluffiness of the creature’s coat or whether it “looks just like its smiling.”

[The decent human being in me (ok, there isn’t much of one) is telling me not to write this, but I just can’t resist.] Maybe the reason Tigerman is upset about the dolphin slaughter is because he is actually the guy who wrote the internet article about mating with dolphins. How would all of you feel if all your past girlfriends were rounded up and butchered?

Actually, though, I agree with tigerman. I see people eat dogs here in Guangdong and it still upsets me. I don’t expect them to change any time soon, but I think dogs, cats, dolphins and whales have a level of intelligence above that of cows, pigs and chickens.

[quote]How would all of you feel if all your past girlfriends were rounded up and butchered?
[/quote]
You’re treading on dangerous ground. Many of my former lovers have ended up in a rosemary and garlic crust with a little mint jelly on the side. :cry:

I read a magazine article about how dozens of pilot whales were driven into shallow water and adults and children alike were in water gleefully slaughtering them. I can’t remember where it took place, but maybe it was in the Faeroe Islands.

But is this slaugher any worse than what happens to cows, pigs, etc? Or do you think that slaughter is unncessary, too?

Except for seal pups, right? They’re soooooooooooooooooooooooo cute!

Not that I support the dolphin killing in any way but what has the level of intelligence (in whatever way you define or measure this?) to do with the decision to eat or not to eat the meat of those animals?

Sure, the named animals can be ‘cute’ but isn’t it more a matter of your culture, upbringing or your feeling about those animals? I don’t see a real objective criteria yet.
I for my part eat rabbit, even though I was rather shocked when my parents slaughtered ‘my pets’ (they rared them but I was a little kid and treated them as pets) and put them on the table. Didn’t touch them at the time but later, long time after we gave up all the animals since it was too much hassle, I tried rabbit meat and started to love it.
During the BSE scare people in German started to eat horse meat (not common but it has always been available) instead of beef.

Of course the way those dolphins are slaughtered is terrible but where there is a demand (and in particular no law against it) there is a supply.

Sorry, I didn’t make myself clear enough. I don’t really object to the slaughter any more than I object to abbatoir techniques, more the rationale espoused for it – “its part of our culture, so we should be allowed to do it.” Call a spade a spade. “We like the taste, we can make a lot of money from selling the meat,” whatever.
And the clip you saw was almost certainly taken in the Faeroe Islands. Pretty weird to see kids as young as 6 up to their waists in blood having the time of their lives.