Dolphins/The Non-Human Human

At the Institute for Marine Mammal Studies in Mississippi, Kelly the dolphin has built up quite a reputation. All the dolphins at the institute are trained to hold on to any litter that falls into their pools until they see a trainer, when they can trade the litter for fish. In this way, the dolphins help to keep their pools clean.


Kelly has taken this task one step further. When people drop paper into the water she hides it under a rock at the bottom of the pool. The next time a trainer passes, she goes down to the rock and tears off a piece of  the paper to give to the trainer. After a fish reward, she goes back down, tears off another piece of paper, gets another fish, and so on. This behavior is interesting because it shows that Kelly has a sense of the future and delays gratification. She has realized that a big piece of paper gets the same reward as a small piece and so delivers only small pieces to keep the extra food coming. She has, in effect, trained the humans.


Her cunning has not stopped there. One day, when a gull flew into her pool, she grabbed it, waited for the trainers and then gave it to them. It was a large bird so the trainers gave her lots of fish. This seemed to give Kelly a new idea. The next time she was fed, instead of eating the last fish, she took it to the bottom of the pool and hid it under the rock where she had been hiding the paper. When no trainers were present, she brought the fish to the surface and used it to lure the gulls, which she would catch and get even more fish. After mastering this lucrative strategy, she taught her calf, who taught other calves, and so gull-baiting has become a hot game among the dolphins.

Dolphins have brains five times larger for their body size, when compared to another animal of similar size, which is a more important indicator of intelligence than size alone. This is second only to the human being, which has a brain seven times larger for their body size, on average. Dolphin brains are intricate, with a neocortex more highly convoluted than our own. Folds increase volume in the cortex and aid in the ability of brain cells to interconnect with each other - strongly linked to human intelligence, and structured to allow for self-awareness and the processing of complex emotions.

Behavioral studies have suggested dolphins, especially Bottlenose dolphins have distinct personalities, a strong sense of self, and can think about the future. They are able to recognize themselves in a mirror and use it to inspect various parts of their bodies - an ability thought only to great apes and humans.

They are cultural animals in that they learn very quickly from each other. Dolphins living off the coast of Western Australia learned to hold sponges over their snouts to protect themselves when searching for spiny fish on the ocean floor.

These are amazingly intelligent creatures worthy of our protection. In fact some scientists are calling for them to be classified as non-human humans. They believe not only should they not be kept in amusement parks or killed for food, but should be afforded extreme protection from fishing - where some 300,000 are killed per year.

And I won't even go into the some of the spiritual beliefs in this post. Suffice it to say these animals may very well be something more than mere humans.

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