A Revised Declaration of Rights for Cetaceans

 

In 2010 a small group of self-selected scientists and activists gathered in Helsinki, Finland to discuss the rights of cetaceans under international law. Their stated purpose was to formulate a declaration of rights and to garner international support for such a declaration. The conference, entitled "Cetacean Rights: Fostering Moral and Legal Change", produced a declaration signed by the 11 members of the 'Helsinki Group'.

While this declaration is well intended, certain elements in it do not represent the well-being of some cetaceans, especially those 'who have nowhere else to go'. 

Because the Dolphin Embassy project and the Cetacean Studies Institute have done extensive research on this expanding population around the world, and have come to recognise the very real importance of protecting their needs against short-sighted, albeit well-meaning, efforts by activist organisations, a revision of the Helsinki Declaration has been undertaken.

The revised declaration is presented here. Comments are welcome, and the revised declaration is open for further revision.

To see the original Declaration of Rights for Cetaceans, as produced by the Helsinki Group, you can see their site here.

Declaration of Rights for Cetaceans: Whales, Dolphins, and Porpoises

Based on the principle of the equal treatment of all persons;
Recognizing that scientific research gives us deeper insights into the complexities of cetacean minds, societies and cultures;

Recognizing that increased human interaction with cetaceans has produced deeper insights into their biological, social, and psychological requirements;
Recognizing that cetaceans have participated in mutually beneficial relationships with humans and have demonstrated adaptive capacity such that they manifest fully complex lives in built environments;
Noting that the progressive development of international law manifests an entitlement to life and well-being for cetaceans;
We affirm that all cetaceans as persons have the right to life, liberty and well-being.

We conclude that:
1. Every individual cetacean has the right to life, safety, clean water, and a sonic environment that does no harm.

2. No cetacean shall be taken into captivity or be removed from their natural environment unless not doing so would endanger their survival. Any cetacean taken into human care shall be returned to their natural environment when feasible, determined on both biological and compassionate grounds. If not feasible it shall be provided an enriching environment that includes socialization with other cetaceans and with humans. Cetaceans  in human care shall have the right to bear offspring, recognising this as an important part of their social and biological nature. Any cetacean born in a human-managed environment has special status with a life-long responsibility for their care by humans.

3. No cetacean shall be subject to cruel treatment.

4. All cetaceans not in human care have the right to freedom of movement and residence within their natural environment.

5. No cetacean is the property of any State, corporation, human group or individual, but may become a ward of such entities if necessary to protect and safeguard their life and well-being. Cetaceans who have come into human care, by natural circumstances or circumstances that are irreversible, shall be provided all due care for the duration of their natural lives.

6. Cetaceans have the right to the protection of their natural environment.

7. Cetaceans have the right, equal to protections provided for human cultures, to not be subject to the disruption of their cultures.

8. The rights, freedoms, and norms set forth in this Declaration shall be protected under international and domestic law as well as an international framework under the administration of the United Nations in which these rights, freedoms, and norms can be fully realized.

9. No State, corporation, human group or individual shall engage in any activity that undermines these rights, freedoms and norms.

10. Nothing in this Declaration shall prevent a State from enacting stricter provisions for the protection of cetacean rights as long as the well-being of cetaceans is foremost in such provisions.

Originally agreed and signed, 22nd May 2010, Helsinki, Finland

Revised by the Cetacean Studies Institute, Dec. 2013-Oct. 2014, Queensland, Australia

Investigation into allegations in "The Cove"

We highly recommend looking into this investigation.

Someone, so far unknown to us, has taken it upon themselves to investigate allegations made in the Oscar-winning documentary "The Cove" about dolphins being sold from the slaughter site to dolphin facilities "all over the world".  It struck us, when we watched The Cove, that it was a continuation of the mis-representation of facts that Ric O'Barry has indulged in for many years. These two short videos only begin the deeper investigation into O'Barry's manipulation of facts. 

See them here:
1. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2tbwUEQo4Yo 
2. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KllJxpznagY 


You may note that the author of the videos says:

"Note to all: As the producer of this video, allow me to state quite clearly this work is mine alone and has not been commissioned by or for Sea World, or for any other aquarium for that matter. Their parks were specifically referenced in this video only because they were featured prevalently in The Cove. 

This video is not intended to be "pro" or "anti" captivity, just to keep to facts of a volatile issue - and one that needs to be solved with honesty."

We look forward to the movement toward more honesty in this issue. We support the move toward a diplomatic solution of the Japanese slaughter, including a much better attitude of respect toward the Japanese people, their culture, and dignity. It is not acceptable to us to characterise Japanese people as dolphin killers as a generalisation and the stated intentions of the producers of The Cove to increase anger toward the Japanese people. This is counter-productive and can only add to the very complex challenges this presents to both Japan and other nations. 

Warm regards, 
Scott 
Dolphin Embassy, Ambassador

"In Defense of Dolphins": a book review

I have recently finished reading an important book titled "In Defense of Dolphins: The New Moral Frontier", by Thomas I. White.

White is a Professor of Business Ethics who has been interested in dolphins for the last 15 years. He focuses on ethics in his teaching and writing, and applies his background in the philosophy of ethics to this book.

His main theme is the assertion that dolphins deserve "person-hood", to be recognised as non-human persons. To this end he gathers much of the important current research into their cognitive abilities, their emotional intelligence, their social nature, and what he repeatedly calls their "alien intelligence".

I feel indebted to Prof. White for this book. He has done us all a great service.

However, I think my indebtedness to him might be of a nature he does not expect.

This book has many merits. It stands tall as a resource for the building movement toward recognition of the rights of dolphins. Professor White has done his research well, with many of the most current research projects into dolphin cognition reviewed.

Here is where my views on this book might be surprising to Dr. White: I believe that this work will engage me for some time to come, as it will no doubt be used by many to continue the fight for the end of the dolphin-human connection. It reveals the strategy of those who would end or seriously impede our growing, and vitally important, relationship with the People of the Sea.

At present I can only skim the issues that are found in this important book.

I find it to be deeply flawed. Not only incomplete, but flawed by its incompleteness. He avoids, overlooks, and ignores important aspects of the story. Granted, the histories and sciences and traditions and philosophies and religions and vast storehouse of human experiences is a lot to take on, but they must if we are to have a full understanding of dolphins and our relationship to them.

There is misdirection in this book, and it appears to be intentional. Very troubling is his abuse of the trust he has created in his readers once he attempts to reach his previously hidden, ultimate goal -- the abolition of all human-managed facilities where dolphins live.

The misuse of the goodwill and trust he has created in the first part of the book, where he builds his careful case for person-hood, is apparent when he dives into his weird conclusions at the end, moving from one paragraph in which he says something is speculative, to the next paragraph where the same thing is now fact. He does this several times.

White uses heavily loaded words in his concluding chapters, in a distinct contrast to his earlier, more balanced word choices. It is a subtle trick as he pursues his goal, as he shades carefully from reasoned argument into biased, emotion-laden rhetoric.

He skips a lot of important information at the end, dismissing Dolphin-Assisted Therapy (DAT) in the same two pages with military uses of dolphins. He has clearly never seen a DAT session and knows next to nothing about it. By putting it in the same subchapter with military uses of dolphins, he vilifies it by association.

His incompleteness includes an apparent lack of interest in, reporting on, or simple knowledge of anything but philosophy and science. His ethics does not include any metaphysics, which I find very odd indeed. Nowhere does he mention one word of any of the spiritual dimensions of the beingness of dolphins. He exhibits the "standard disregard" for the hidden side of life, the feelings and spiritual aspects, which is all the more odd when one reads his many pages about the emotive, affective, feeling-aware dolphins.

White is woefully ignorant of history, it seems. He states that our relationship with dolphins has existed for two thousand years. How very odd that he overlooks both indigenous wisdom and traditions, the very available record of over 15,000 years of contact and relationship with dolphins. If a researcher is willing to add mythology and pre-history, we can extend that time to over 50,000 years. This is telling, as he clearly has only looked at a few of the many dimensions of our important relationship with dolphins.

Matsya Avatar, First Incarnation of Vishnu as a dolphin, 25,000 years ago

He also does not address other important aspects of his argument: what about the "moral standing" of elephants, who are proven to be self-aware by the same tests he extols when applied to dolphins? Do elephants have the same degree of moral standing, thus person-hood, as dolphins? He decries the description of dolphins as objects, as items of ownership, as anything less than beings deserving high status alongside humans, and uses examples of how we should treat them by making it out that we can deny careful consideration for all other "animals". He seems to accept abuse of all animals-- captivity, raising them for food, doing research upon them, hunting them -- but not dolphins.

He insists that all dolphins in captivity are less intelligent, less mentally adept, and definitely discontented, with nothing to interest them. He has apparently not met the same dolphins I know...

After chapters and chapters making a case that we must not anthropomorphise them, he sets about doing that very thing, over and over, during his concluding remarks. He assumes to know their thoughts, levels of contentedness, and mental agility, by using human-value-based projections upon observed behaviours.

Oddly, he says it is hard to make a case against captivity, then attempts to do so, and fails.

He says that nearly all research into dolphins-- their intelligence, health, physical systems, self-awareness, and more -- were done - necessarily - in captive environments, and that this now has no place and must end. He implies that there is nothing left to learn about dolphins that we cannot learn at sea. I am reminded of the man who resigned from the US Patent Office in the early 1900s because he was convinced there was nothing left to invent.

He suggests that dolphins in facilities be "allowed to die out over the next 40-50 years". He does not address the need for decent social interaction, which demands that dolphins be in mixed-gender groups for healthy lives, which produces more dolphins. Does he condone, as Ric O'Barry insists upon, the force-feeding of contraceptive drugs to dolphins? It would seem so.

A happy family of dolphins, Coffs Harbour, Australia

White recognises the failures of attempted release of formerly managed dolphins, so he does not advocate their summary dumping into the sea, which is to his credit, but he does advocate killing them all off by a sort of benign neglect -- and in doing so, going diametrically against his entire main argument for a decent regard for their "persons". He is hypocritical on this issue.

It is clear that White wants to end captivity. He sets out to arrive at that destination, and his first chapters do an admirable job of building a case for much better appreciation of dolphins-- their lives, intelligence, self-awareness, cognitive abilities, and more. But when he gets close to his objective, his arguments suddenly become fact-free, emotive, subjective, and ultimately corrupted by twisted logic, making many of the same errors of fact and logic that he attacked earlier in others.

All in all, his book is very important and will add fuel to many fires. He will be championed by the "Lori Marino camp" (he makes her out to be a major heroine on the dolphin scene, citing her repeatedly). He has also done the Dolphin Embassy a great favour, not only by building a very good case for person-hood, for the Cetacean Nation objective, but he has also clearly demonstrated and outlined the deep flaws in the arguments against DAT and our ever-improving, and critically important, relationship with dolphins.

Scott Taylor
Ambassador