@Hufingraz

“Maybe he was trying to commit suicide.”

Perhaps it was. If so, it still isn’t very smart. According to Ric o’Berry a dolphin can voluntarily cease breathing which would result in death. If this is true, that would have been a far more effective and sure way to commit suicide than leaping out of the tank.

Kimitake are you capabable of showing any other emotion other then hate? They often beach themselves because they are sick (usually with infections or worms). Additionally deep water dolphins and whales may not be able to see the shore until it is too late to stop.

HEY! My dogs lacks opposable thumbs too, however, a while ago one of them stayed with me until i came back to my senses after a freak anxiety attack. He did a far better job than other humans who try to make me drink stuff “according to them” to snap out of it.

Except that scientific study has determined dolphins are extremely intelligent as well as other whales. In fact, dolphins in particular are now considered to be more intelligent than apes making them the second smartest creature on the planet.

The reason this is significant in terms of hunting, is the evidence that these animals are capable of high level cognitive thinking and even emotional suffering. Some scientists have recommended dolphins be given special consideration as “non-human persons” as a result of this research. They are biologically and behaviorally observed to be highly intelligent, sentient beings.

Pro-whaling arguments against cetacean intelligence usually boil down to brain damaged statements like, “if they is so smart why don’t they jump out of the nets, yuk yuk”.

Yes, he probably thought that he wanted the heck out of that tank, but i am sure that if someone had showed him the blueprint of the holding facility that is now his house, i am pretty sure him and the rest of the dolphins would be able to escape.

Again. Irony? Sarcasm?

Maybe. Fact is that it has been proven time and again that marine life is pretty smart. Humans who still think they are the only thinking species on the planet are nothing more than arrogant.

FREE THE DOLPHINS!!! And away from The Cove.

YAY! We can agree on things Mick. But also whales, other marine life, and animals at zoos and circuses need to be liberated.

Why, in your opinion, am i being hypocritical? Explain.

Sue me for exploiting my pets.

You are way off your target here buddy.

First of all i am not American born, i was born in another country but yes, i became a citizen in 2007.

Second, unless you asked me, point blank, what do i think about sea life or any other life kept in aquariums, circuses, zoos in this country or in Japan or anywhere else, i would tell you that i oppose all of that and i do not care if that includes my country of origin or yours. Keeping any animal behind bars for the sake of profit is simply immoral.

Third, yes, i do have dogs, cats, and birds; i have nothing to hide. Had we not have pets, most likely all of them would have been destroyed. All of them (minus one) are rescues from people who found them and from Humane Societies and shelters. So Mick, is it in your opinion, a better alternative to adopting pets to just let them be euthanized and become part of the 6 million pets that are killed each year in this country for lack of good homes?

I do not exploit or abuse them, and i certainly do not make any money of them. If anything I do anything and everything I possibly can to make sure they are good, healthy, well-fed, happy, and well: $84 for my bird doctor to tell me that my parakeet was molting and did not have a fungus, $324 just yesterday for one of my cat’s teeth cleaning and renal monitoring, $400+ a month ago for the teeth cleaning and ECG of one of my dogs, $175 a year to clean the teeth of my other dog, not to count the yearly check-ups and vaccinations they all require, and the list goes on and on.

Tell me what part of that sounds like exploitation to you? Perhaps you can shed some light on my shameful behavior with my pets and who knows, maybe I can learn something from you, something I have never heard from anybody else.

Is that as bad as keeping animals to them kill them and eat them? Probably the same right?

How do you know that? How can anyone possibly calculate that? If according to the level of human intelligence then all animals are doomed.

@ Mick – But apparently neither many humans who continuously eat red meat even though it has been linked to cancer, or continue smoking, therefore irreparably damaging their lungs, or smelling glue, or snorting i do not know…drugs. Same thing, those are things humans have been doing those things for years, decades, centuries and yet do not change. What does that tell you about human intelligence in general?

Well, i would certainly hope that if someday i am killed i will be careful enough not to return to the same place…or i will get killed again!

You probably have absolutely zero experience with animals and have never owned a pet. Do you speak from personal experience?

Again, you seem incapable of understanding sarcasm so i will try to state things in the lamest terms.

One thing i have to say to you because i am getting nowhere with you is that i have never said that animals are humans. Not sure where you got that from.

And lastly Mick, you should only throw stones at me if you have no fault in whatever matter we are discussing.

You said to me when you brought up the fact that i admitted to having dogs: “Shouldn’t you “liberate” them? Aren’t you exploiting them and keeping them in slavery?” when clearly YOU are the one who exploits your domesticated animals by raising them, killing them, and then feasting on their corpses.

You got me Mick, you have me all figured out.

Mick, honestly i do not care what you think and i seriously lack the amount of time needed to go through what you type in this blog with a fine-tooth comb to then put it into quotes to call you out for something/anything you have said.

You and i have different opinions about what animals mean, how animals feel, and how we use them or not and that is fine, we do not have to agree. We will never get to an agreement and if it makes you feel good you can go ahead and keep saying that i cannot counter-argument and that i only provide vague rhetoric. It makes no difference to me and it changes nothing.

Whatever the case may be, point is that i believe in what i said, that is my truth and you believe in yours; I do not have to justify anything to you or to anybody. Bottom line is: i believe animals are far more intelligent than many arrogant human beings would want to accept. Period. Take it or leave it. Don’t care either way.

And i already said that was fine.

@Whoever

“do you think humans behave as an intelligent species?”

Yes I do. Humans are far more intelligent than animals. Otherwise we would not be having this conversation. If you want to believe that an animal is better and more intelligent than yourself, feel free to do so, that is your preogative.

Edit: i meant to say that there are many forms of communication…meh…

See? Intelligent human.

I bet that if they could talk they would convince people to stop chasing after them to be turned into a steak, or a purse, or a circus clown, but just like we talk amongst ourselves they do the same amongst themselves.

Of course they know that some humans only mean bad news. Have you ever looked into the fearful eyes of an animal raised for food? Why do you think so many animals have jumped fences or escaped off trailers on the way to the slaughterhouse? While they may be able to reason, and perhaps in terms that are completely unknown to us, they do reason, within their own capabilities.

The problem seems to be that since they cannot reason the way humans do then they are deemed stupid, but the truth is that within our species we are just surviving, we are killing everything around us and that is not very smart.

Only humans are ‘smart” enough to keep destroying the places where they live…the oceans, rainforests, grasslands etc. Only humans are smart enough to keep breeding beyond sustainable levels. Only humans are smart enough to take drugs knowing that some drugs can kill them. Only humans kill themselves in cars, only humans kill each other for money, only humans will drill a hole in the ocean floor and let a billion barrels of oil destroy half of the USA wetlands.

Oh you learned to copy and paste, good job!
If you had looked thru the trees to see the forest of what I was saying, you would have seen that we hear all the time from the dolphin cove-killing, pro-whaling Japanese industry PR flacks is that All Japanese are proud of that traditional Japanese heritage and all agree that they are in the right– ESPECIALLY on these ecorazzi posts! Do we hear cowboys telling the world that All Americans are that way, or do they know better and recognize that is it just them rednecks? Don’t get me wrong, however convenient that may be for you, I think Japan and the Japanese people are great, it’s just that the impression we get around the world is that they are all, as one, proud to kill whales and dolphins. Obviously we know that is not the case, but my sarcasm was too much for you up there, apparently. And to be fair, I agree with you, in that rodeos, and the beef industry are terrible, unsustainable institutions that should be stopped. No argument on that, but to say I question the mixed messages of one nation because mine is somewhat similar, is not going to get either nation anywhere. We’ll both be right, and those institutions will get no resistance. So, I shine a little spotlight with an ironic question, in the interest of change.

I have no fascination with the Kardashians, I merely have heard their names, which apparently, so have you. And I’ve texted like 2x! Don’t assume.

Ok but to assume makes an ASS out of U and ME. (Mainly U in the last post, but as you said, you’re free to do that whenever you want, of course.)

BTW, stating ALL Japanese believe in one thing WAS my sarcastic point– what are you high? AND I clarified I was being sarcastic (not literal) all in the interest of Change. It helps if you read what I wrote before you auto-react against it with pseudo-vindictive nonsense. I’ll just have to bring my sarcasm out to outright Dead Kennedys level for it not to be somehow misconstrued as my real opinion on future posts, my bad.

This is only my opinion, which I am allowed to have whenever and wherever I want, FYI.

Anyways, it is ironic to me that many countries have on 1 hand a love for animals and then on the other hand they have an industry that kills those same animals for food, sport, heli-safari, habitat, research, ignorance, etc…
In this story, it was Japanese at some Ocean themed amusement park, which is why I wrote what I did. Not an American rodeo where a calf jumped a fence, not a bull that ran into a crowd in Spain, not a tiger getting loose at a zoo in China.
It was a dolphin in captivity popping out of it’s cage in Japan, a country that has a govt subsidized whaling program, and villages that kill dolphins in coves.

I thought it was interesting to note that obviously many Japanese will pay money to see dolphins in a park in light of that. Further, that they maybe even goes to prove that they may NOT ALL support mass killings of dolphins. I hope that my sarcastic take before wasn’t lost on anyone else but you, David.

Case in point, condescension is uglier than sarcasm, thanks for proving that. I also think it is revealing how you cherry-pick certain lines that you can exploit, but then ignore others that you have no answers for.

You imply that I am running because you’re points are SOOOO solid I cannot refute them. 1st, that is just funny. 2nd, you don’t control me in this “conversation”– whether I am responding or not is up to me. If you think I’m running from your 2 “gotcha” points because out of context you pulled out blanket statements I made trying to actually converse with you openly, you’ve got another thing coming. If that helps your ego think it “won” and “is on top” then that victory is all yours, my friend. I am not interested in a yelling match in which people “prove” each other wrong on sidepoints to the online audience. I was, past tense, trying to have a deeper discussion on this thread. If you need to label that as I’m running from you well then you go ahead.

In that vein, let me address these points you say I am running from. You said: “I don’t remember anyone claim that ALL Japanese have the same opinion about anything.” in response to my
“I think Japan and the Japanese people are great, it’s just that the impression we get around the world is that they are all, as one, proud to kill whales and dolphins.” That’s quite an exaggeration of what I said, but we’ll put that aside and clarify that what I did say was that it was an IMPRESSION, not that they ARE all proud of that. Still I will concede it could have been easily misinterpreted, so let me just say that I know there many Japanese people that love dolphins and whales. Unfortunately, they are not being represented very well with the govt-subsidized whaling program, certain villages killing dolphins in coves, and an international PR campaign, recently found to be bribing officials to change IWC votes. And for your 2nd point: “I know many 3rd graders that are already in 4H and raising animals for food. So your ‘…any 3rd grader ANYWHERE…’ comment is another fail.” –I would look at my capitalization of ANYWHERE as just trying to be overly clear to someone who is not getting it. Kids around the world love animals, and yes, many of them do hunt, farm, or otherwise utilize animals already in 3rd grade. But I ask you to find me a 3rd grader who has no love, respect, wonder, or excitement about at least 1 animal on Earth, and then you begin to see what I was driving at.

At least you would if it didn’t mean you might lose a rung on the Illusionary Point Ladder that is online posting. Now I ask you, David, are you brave enough to do that, or will you run away? And I ask that not to make points myself, but as an honest invitation to enter a more productive discussion. Here’s to hoping…