Are dolphins intelligent ? Of course they are duh!

I've been very lax in keeping this blog up to date, oops.


Recently I've been involved in a lot of arguing about the ethics of keeping captive dolphins, mainly in the wake of the documentary Blackfish. My grad student and I organized a workshop at the recent Society for Marine Mammalogy conference on the science behind intelligence in dolphins, and what it means in terms of ethics and laws. For example, studies showing that they are self aware and have other cognitive skills equivalent to a 4-6 year old human child, yet the US government can allow permits for capturing, harassing and these injuring animals with little consideration for implications of this level of intelligence. The primate science community has been addressing similar concerns, and laws have been passed that basically shut down much invasive great ape research, and requires the retirement of great apes to "sanctuaries". But not so with cetaceans.


Just prior to this a book came out that basically posits that dolphins are not especially intelligent - at least that's what all the press coverage claimed. I had to weigh in:


http://www.southernfriedscience.com/?p=15458


And encouraged my friend Mel to write a critique of the book: http://www.southernfriedscience.com/?p=16532


So if you have any thought about saying that dolphins are dumb, you'd better think twice.