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

Geographies of the Liminal Dolphin: toward an understanding of the contested spaces of Dolphin-Assisted Therapy

A patient, a therapist, and a dolphin
Dolphin-Assisted Therapy at the Curacao Dolphin Therapy Center

 

I am reposting the announcement of the publication of the research project I completed in 2014. It is the basis for the Doctor of Philosophy granted to me, the first PhD ever conferred for social science research on Dolphin-Assisted Therapy. Its title is:

“Geographies of the Liminal Dolphin: 

toward an understanding of the contested spaces of 

Dolphin-Assisted Therapy” 

It is available from the University of the Sunshine Coast, in Queensland, Australia.

It can be downloaded here:
http://research.usc.edu.au/vital/access/manager/Repository/usc:13419

 

Abstract: This research explored Dolphin-Assisted Therapies that have benefitted persons with disabilities and their families, yet have been widely contested in academic and popular media. The research found that knowledge and ethical judgments about the therapies vary according to the distance from which they are produced and that these therapies highlight mutualism between species, requiring a hybrid understanding of ethics. It produced the first social science study of the many types of therapy in the field using Geographic analysis of its discourse and a case study of a clinic in Curacao based on observations and interviews with families and therapists.

For those who are not deeply interested in academic thesis development, and who want to read the parts about dolphins, therapy, and the research I did and my conclusions, I recommend reading Chapter One, then read Chapters Five thru Nine.

~~~~~
I had significant challenges in the development of this research. The first was constructing a definition of Dolphin-Assisted Therapy (DAT).  I found that I needed to developed an understanding of DAT's many varieties, highlighting 13 different types. 

The next challenge was to assemble a history of DAT. No truly comprehensive history of DAT existed. I visited and interviewed key persons in its history, did extensive research in original documents and were able to construct a history that should serve to make clear the key moments, ideas, and persons who have played important roles.

Every published paper on DAT that I could locate was analysed, including papers in Spanish, Greek, Russian, Finnish, German, and English. Some were doctoral theses, some were journal articles, some were seemingly academic but published in non-peer-reviewed sources. I analysed the research of academics who oppose DAT and discovered significant flaws. I did not find opposition based on open-minded and balanced research, but found influential papers written with strongly preconceived biases. 

Analysis of the 'gray literature' in the DAT discourse, that is, texts that are in the public domain that draw upon science but have not been peer-reviewed, were found to have a lack of rigorous standards. There I found statements made by academics demonstrating bias. 

What became clear in my review of the literature of DAT is that studies that conclude that DAT has no validity provide incentive to do better research. Critical analysis has pointed out various flaws and ways the research can be improved.

Research supportive of DAT was analyzed closely. In doing so, a definition of DAT was developed that includes its many varieties. Some notions of what DAT is were not based on evidence that was available to scientific analysis. While this poses problems for academic understanding it does bring some people to try DAT, drawn by the hopeful descriptions of non-scientific supporters. Some 'outcome research' was well done, revealing significant positive outcomes for many families.

What was significant to discover was the lack of field research by those who oppose DAT.  I found no significant published research critical of DAT that was based on interviews, visits to facilities, or analysis of medical records. Instead, I found a prevailing concern with the complex ethics of human-nonhuman relations as the primary driver of opposition to this field of therapies. There were few attempts to challenge the actual therapy itself, and these were found to have been done by academics without credentials or documented training for such analysis.

The Agencies of DAT:
The overlapping and distinct areas of influence in Dophin-Assisted Therapy

A significant finding in my research was the benefit to dolphins from being involved in DAT. For those dolphins who live in human care and found to be at ease in human presence and who demonstrate a willingness and enthusiasm for working alongside trainers and therapists, a life apart from the ocean and in daily contact with humans seems to provide important enrichment and social interaction. Therapists refer to the dolphins with whom they work in therapy sessions as their ‘colleagues’, a unique description for a non-human animal.

DAT flow chart:
Key factors and their relations to DAT

Among the other findings were that DAT is holistic, reaching far beyond the interactions in the spaces of dolphin enclosure. Families experienced DAT from the first determination to utilise it. Its effects are felt when their lives become focused on travel, fundraising, family adjustments, and community involvement. Several of the interviewed families described how their local community rallied in support of them, doing fundraising events and becoming much more engaged and supportive of them. DAT also reaches into the lives of providers, the therapists and dolphin trainers, causing global movement, relationship changes, career advancement, and improved lives for the therapists and trainers.

As I searched for concepts that support my findings I found the work of an early Geographer, Peter Kropotkin, who published a book in 1902 on his research that demonstrated cooperation as a significant part of relationships in nature. Kropotkin developed this theory to counter the notion put forward by Darwin and Huxley that competition was the fundamental basis of all relationships in nature. Calling it ‘Mutual Aid’, Kropotkin’s book still influences many areas of biology. Referred to as ‘mutualism’, the concept has now taken on the meaning of relationships that go beyond symbiosis into mutual benefit  based on cooperation. This describes the interspecies work going on in DAT and I used mutualism as an important concept to describe its cross-border work.

Other important work by Donna Haraway, Vicki Hearne, Bruno Latour, Nigel Thrift, William S. Lynn, J. Claude Evans, and Michel Foucault were influential in my work. Among those whose work on DAT has been of special importance to our research are David Cole, Dr. Steve Birch, Dr. David Nathanson, Marco Kuerschner, and Kirsten Kuhnert.

I extend my heartfelt thanks to the Curacao Dolphin Therapy Center for their  support of my research, and especially to the families who were willing to be interviewed, and the dedicated therapists and trainers who took time to share so much with me.

The Curacao Sea Aquarium (center), the Dolphin Academy (bottom right pools) and the Curacao Dolphin Therapy Center (top right pools)

 This is the first research ever published on the social dimensions of DAT, the spaces it creates, and the affective realities in which it exists. As a contribution to the body of literature on DAT, it will serve as a milestone. I am very pleased to make it available to anyone who cares to study it.

Warm regards,
Dr. C. Scott Taylor, BSocSc (Hons); PhD
Ambassador

Sites of encounter with dolphins: are they Embassies?

Do dolphins make choices? 

Should humans honour the choices they make, if they do?

The border, the meeting, the choice: whose choice is honoured?

In the language of academia, choices intentionally made are sometimes defined as an expression of 'agency'. In this article I discuss dolphin agency and how humans respond to it, and announce the publication of a scholarly article that includes a suggested way to understand and respond to interspecies encounter opportunities.

In locations around the world, from ancient times to the present, dolphins, for their own reasons, have sought out human contact. Some do so today in cooperative fishing ventures, where dolphins herd fish toward places where human fishermen stand, waiting with nets. Fish are caught in the nets, gathered up, and some let go for the dolphins to feed on. In the estuary at the mouth of the river Plata, in South America, this has been going on as long as anyone remembers. The Imragen people along the west coast of Northern Africa do the same along an ocean beach, aided by dolphins who drive fish to shore. Australian aboriginal tribes tell of many sites where dolphins drove fish inshore to be caught by humans: on Bribie Island; just north of Coffs Harbour; and at Amity Point on Stradbroke Island, among others.

And then there are the places where dolphins come for another reason: to communicate and to play. Some of these situations last only a few days or weeks, with local people enjoying a brief series of encounters. Some get more well known, lasting weeks, or months. And some, like Fungie, a dolphin who lives just outside Dingle harbour  in Ireland, stay for decades--since 1984. Fungie has been visiting the harbour there for nearly 30 years now. He has been known to have a female friend for several seasons who leaves him behind, to live alone again. His antics with divers and swimmers are legendary, having inspired films, books, healers, mystics, and activists.

Fungie and Kim Kindersley (filmmaker)

Another site where dolphins have interacted with humans for decades in Kealakekua Bay, on the Big Island of Hawaii. Here Spinner Dolphins have come daily for rest, socialising, and human interaction. Numerous scientific studies have been done at K Bay, beginning with those of Dr Ken Norris, who published two books about his research there and elsewhere (The Porpoise Watcher, 1974; Dolphin Days, 1991). A well-known dolphin interaction advocate and swim-experience leader (Joan Ocean) has lived aside K Bay for decades, writing books (Dolphin Connection, 1989; Dolphins into the Future, 1997), leading workshops, and producing various films. Terry J Walker, who wrote "How to swim with Dolphins" (1998), has lived in Hawaii most of her life, and began swimming with the K Bay dolphins in the early 90s, and has tirelessly worked to help humans understand and appreciate the dolphins there so that the interaction can continue.

Kealakekua Bay is the place where I was first drawn into the real-world challenge of dolphin-human interaction as an issue of dolphin choice versus human concerns. Humans, rightly so, have been making an effort there to avoid the problems that have arisen elsewhere, where dolphins have chosen to befriend humans. Research has shown that all-too-often these encounter sites become places of sorrow, where the dolphins suffer for their friendliness (see "Lone Rangers: a report on solitary dolphins and whales including recommendations for their protection", a report for the Marine Connection, by Goodwin and Dodds, 2008). Altho it cannot be said this always happens (see Fungie, the dolphins who visit Monkey Mia, Tangalooma and Tin Can Bay in Australia, and the Atlantic Spotted dolphins living in the waters near Bimini, as examples), there is a sad pattern to be found: the dolphins come, humans interact and all is well, then humans act inappropriately, some official entity passes restrictive rules, some humans get angry, and the dolphin is either driven away, injured, or killed.

No one wants this to happen. Efforts to understand and control these situations, with the aim of protecting the dolphins from harm, have been put in place. However, in some cases, these very rules have led to poor outcomes. Threatening signs posted on beaches, arrests for 'harassing dolphins', and huge fines for innocent interspecies play have ensued at various times.

A sign commonly found along US shorelines, warning of 
"civil and criminal penalties" for interacting with marine mammals.

One of my interests has become this issue: how to accommodate the very fulfilling, educational, stimulating, and for some, spiritually inspiring, experience of interaction with free-ranging dolphins in ways that are safe for both dolphins and humans.  To this end, I conducted a research project under the auspices of the University of the Sunshine Coast toward fulfilling the requirements for my Bachelor's Degree in Geography, under the title "The Dolphin-Human Connection: Embassy or Zoo-without-walls?". I earned a first class Honours degree for this research, which analysed various dolphin-human interaction management schemes. Based on that research, I wrote (with the assistance of Dr Jen Carter) an article for the peer-reviewed journal Geographical Research, which has now been published.  

The citation is:
Taylor, C. S. & Carter, J. (2013) The agency of dolphins: towards interspecies embassies as sites of engagement with 'significant otherness'. Geographical Research, 51 (1), 1-10.(link to journal)

The Agency of Dolphins article explores the question of choice, the intentional volition of dolphins as they come into contact with humans for their own reasons. It concludes that dolphins do have agency -- and that they make an intentional choice to approach humans-- in these situations, and that this choice  deserves to be framed as one of respectful intercultural interaction. If dolphins, and many other animals who are in contact with humans, are often referred to as 'ambassadors' of their species, it seems a simple extension of this common idea to conceive of the sites where this occurs as embassies. An embassy, by common definition, is a place where different cultures come together in a spirit of respect, where cooperation is expected to negotiate ways of communicating that can lead to mutual satisfaction. An embassy implies an 'interspecies etiquette' (first suggested by Cheney and Weston in 1999), which is a considerate stance based on empathy, intended to "create the space within which a response can emerge or an exchange coevolve".

This article is intended to open a dialog, to open an area of interspecies interaction research and subsequent legislation. It seeks to add another worldview, one that takes into account the choices of dolphins, who seem very willing, for reasons we cannot know, to befriend humans. It is up to humans to figure out how to manage human responses to these wonderful opportunities.

Serious researchers can request copies of the article. 

C Scott Taylor BSoc (first Class Honours), PhD

On Saving Whales, on ending their lives

On Sept. 2nd a stranded dying whale was killed by Australian government officials by placing explosive charges on its head and triggering a powerful implosive blow to its brain.  This occurred at Albany, on Australia's southwest coast. The whale was described as being a Humpback, about 9.5 metres long. It had been stranded for approximately two weeks, and was visibly deteriorating. 

At first the Department of Environment and Conservation (DEC) had determined that no euthanasia was possible for the whale for several reasons. It was "too big to be shot" and because of its position, floating in about a metre of water, "was still strong enough to be a safety risk to humans". The whale moved, stranding itself farther up on the sandbar upon which it rested, effectively immobilising it. At that point, the Albany DEC district manager, Mike Shepherd, decided to euthanise the whale.

"Our main priority has always been to treat this animal as humanely as possible while nature took its course," Mr Shepherd said.

"In the last 24 hours the whale moved a couple of metres from its original stranding position, which was enough to stabilise the whale so that we could carry out the preparations for a controlled implosion to the whale’s cranium."

"We know from experience that predominantly only sick, injured or malnourished humpbacks come inshore, so when they strand they are usually winding down,'' Mr Shepherd said.

The implosion method has been approved by the International Whaling Commission as a humane method to be used on whales larger than 7 metres and death is instantaneous.

As a contrast, a juvenile Humpback whale, approximately 7 metres long, was rescued off the coast of southern Queensland, on Sept. 4th, after having become entangled in a "shark net". According to Queensland shark control manager Tony Ham from Fisheries Queensland, it took officers less than half an hour to free the whale, which became entangled off Surfers Paradise early on Saturday morning.

"The Marine Animal Release Team, made up of officers from the Queensland Boating and Fisheries Patrol and Seaworld, did an amazing job to free the animal," Mr Ham said."Approximately 13,000 whales are expected to be migrating along the Queensland coastline this migration season," he said.

"Juvenile whales such as this are more likely to become entangled than adults as they have less experienced and often travel on their own."

It is the first entanglement this whale migration season.

In 2009 six whales that were entangled in Gold Coast nets were successfully freed.

(To see the specialised tool used to safely cut nets that have entangled whales, and read how these were developed, see: http://www.spyderco.com/catalog/details.php?product=279)

These incidents, two days apart, highlight the troubled relationship we have with whales (and dolphins). It is with great sympathy that we consider the terrible task faced by the DEC officials in Albany, as they faced the role they took on, bringing such human-centred values to the killing of the stranded whale. It is certain that their concerns were as stated, to "treat the whale humanely", yet we know, the moment when we take an innocent life, especially one not raised to be eaten, or hunted for food out of necessity, is difficult. Many of us reading these words will have had to do something similar when a beloved companion has come to a final, painful part of their life. We call the vet and ask for our friend's life to be ended. It is always hard.

Is the action of the DEC warranted? Would the gradual death of the whale, who was eventually so stranded it could not have been expected to refloat, and whose condition appeared to be deteriorating daily, be acceptable to witness? Was it only the suffering of the whale, assuming it was suffering and not in some state of whale consciousness that was outside our knowing, waiting in some kind of peaceful acceptance, that asked for this decision? Or was it not also the human side, the visions of suffering, the agonising sense that something must be done, something must be done to alleviate our feelings of despair, helplessness, and sadness?

On the other side of the continent a young whale wandered into the shark nets, getting caught. A team of humans, would could have risked their lives to disentangle it, were able to accomplish the task in less than 30 minutes. (See footage of the rescue here: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VwcsJLQ5Y2A&feature=player_embedded)

Who asks if this is right to do, putting human life at risk for the sake of a whale? We imagine no one does, no one pauses, raises questions, attempts to put forward the case that the whale should be left to die. Is that because the nets are human in origin, that humans have created the danger for the whale?

Some people have expressed outrage, in comments left on news sites on the internet, protesting the 'barbaric' treatment of the western whale. While the image evoked by the description of the method used to euthanise the whale is gruesome, after contemplating the issues involved, we find it hard to fault the choice made… in this case, and with the (limited) information we have at hand.

We do not uniformly accept this type of decision. However, the evidence presented by the media, unless we learn otherwise, does make a compelling case for euthanasia. In the case of the younger whale caught off Surfer's Paradise, we consider the responsibility of humans, for placing the shark nets in the ocean (which we do not agree with, as they do little to protect anyone during the winter months with few swimmers and many very young whales heading south for the first time, and do kill cetaceans, turtles, and other sea life needlessly) makes it imperative that every effort possible must be made to save any creatures caught…including sharks.

(for some background, see http://tinyurl.com/3yoch8l, and an opposing view: http://www.goldcoast.com.au/article/2009/10/09/146125_gold-coast-news.html)

Something to ponder, these two nearly simultaneous cases.

Be well,

Scott Taylor, BSSoc (1st Class Honours), PhD
Ambassador

The Dolphin Embassy -- Momentum is gathering

The Dolphin Embassy has just returned to Australia from my annual overseas journey.

Each year since 2005 I have “taken my show on the road”, traveling around the world to do presentations, informing and inspiring audiences to regard all cetaceans as deserving of recognition, recognition of their inherent status as advanced beings with unalienable rights. Each year I experience growth in the acceptance of the ideas offered.

This year the tour was shorter, but it feels that it may have had a strong impact. I spent time in Colorado, Florida, California, and Oregon, and in each place the level of interest delighted me.

I did six formal presentations in the US this year –Denver (at the beautiful headquarters of the Metaphysical Research Society), Sebastopol, Petaluma, San Francisco (at Globe Studios and Sound Therapy Center), and Mt Shasta (at the Flying Lotus) in California, and Portland, Oregon. Supported along the way by dear friends Barry and Coral of Sebastopol, Fort Schlesinger of Petaluma, and the wonderful energy of Brent Willet, we were able to reach audiences that were primed and ready to hear about the ideas I share.
 

Background

In the late 1950s, Dr. John C. Lilly began his famous research on dolphins. His quest led him to the momentous discovery that they are fully sentient, cognizant, reasoning, cultured, and sophisticated beings. It was immediately apparent to Dr. Lilly that something was amiss in our relationship with cetaceans – he had made the same mistakes as everyone else, assuming them to be just another species of animal.

Once he made his important breakthrough, it was an easy step to realize that dolphins, whales, and porpoises deserved to have their rights recognized and protected. It is not, as some have misunderstood, the human role to offer them their rights. Instead, it is our duty to acknowledge the rights that they have. As a matter of scientific fact, their history as a highly evolved family of beings is much older than the human (even the Bible, in Genesis, specifically recognizes that they were created on an earlier “Day” then humans, the fifth Day. They were the earliest creatures named in the Old Testament).

Dr. Lilly saw, in a sudden insight, that there already exists a vast nation, comprised of all the seas and oceans of our planet. The citizens of this nation, the largest on the planet, are the Whales, Dolphins, and Porpoises – the Cetacean Nation.

In 1961, Dr. Lilly published his first reference to this idea. Over the subsequent years he worked with many friends to develop the concept. With Michael Bailey, of Greenpeace Hawaii (the only Greenpeace autonomous “cell” that did not become part of the subsequent amalgamated organization we know as Greenpeace International), he worked out a strategic plan for implementing recognition of the Cetacean Nation.

Later on, his close friend Rebecca Goodman joined John in publicly announcing, again, the intention to bring the Cetacean Nation to reality.

When I asked John, in 1997, what he hoped his public legacy would be --after a lifetime of inventions, discoveries, and important research – he answered without hesitation “the Cetacean Nation”.

Years of discussion and public presentations later (we shared the stage at the 6th International ICERC Whale and Dolphin Conference in Hervey Bay, Australia, 1997, presenting our ideas about the Cetacean Nation), John surprised me by publicly suggesting that his preferred Ambassador to the United Nations from the Cetacean Nation would be me. (see “Gilding the Lilly: The Cetacean Nation”, video by SoundPhotosynthesis).

Dr. John C. Lilly and Scott Taylor, Hervey Bay, Australia, 1997

John had this to say:
“Mr. Taylor is a key person in what I call the Cetacean Nation, a global network of like-minded individuals attempting to bridge the communication gap between humans and cetaceans. His work contributes a wider understanding of humanity, cetacea, and the environment on the edge of the twenty-first century. Scott’s continued efforts as educator and catalyst bridge not only the interspecies communication barrier, but the barriers between people.”

Sadly, we were not able to accomplish the global recognition of the Cetacean Nation before Dr. Lilly died (Sept. 30, 2001). My dedication to this goal is unabated, however.
The Dolphin Embassy -- Australia

I established The Dolphin Embassy as a registered non-profit organization in Australia in October of 2004. Its mission is to educate and inspire humans toward a proper regard for the rights of all cetaceans. To this end I have taken multi-media presentations on the road, traveling around the world, visiting India, Belgium, the Bahamas, Mexico, Fiji, and many states in America (Florida, Colorado, Utah, Oregon, New Mexico. Arizona, California).

I recognize the quixotic nature of this endeavor. It is easily seen as a harmless joke, a prank that we might pull to engage people, pulling them via humor into thinking, if only for a moment, about the rights of Cetaceans. We also see this as we see many aspects of the dolphin story – the closer you look, and become involved, the deeper it gets.

An Aside – and a bit of history
Doug Michels was a visionary artist, architect, and man of many talents. In 1974, he and some friends established “The Dolphin Embassy” as an art project under the aegis of the famous Ant Farm, in Houston Texas. A 501 (c) 3 non-profit was organized to support the idea. In 1978, after a disastrous fire destroyed the studios of the Ant Farm, the project was abandoned. In 1977, Michels went as far as traveling to Australia to meet some dolphins, to explain his intentions, to offer to speak on their behalf.

Doug Michels, Gold Coast, Australia, 1977

Some years later, Michels drew plans for an orbiting space station (Project Blue Star) that included a central glass globe full of water, in which dolphins could live. His idea was that dolphins could be the best weightless teachers we could find, alien intelligence that could help us understand the mysteries of outer space. (it was not explained how the dolphins would access air, or how the water would be taken up to the station).

Project Blue Star

In an sad bit of synchronicity, Doug Michels was in Australia, working on a film about the friendly Orca of Eden Bay in 2004 when he slipped and fell off a cliff and died. He died on the same day that we formally established The Dolphin Embassy in Australia. We did not know that he was in Australia at the time…

The Current Status of the Dolphin Embassy

Over the years I have met many people with parts to offer. Some have led us to important aspects of the process of becoming able to work at the United Nations (thanks, Marsha, for that!) Some have engaged in lengthy discussions via email, aiming to sharpen our approach. And some have been very supportive in helping gather audiences to hear our ideas (thanks especially for this, Brent!). We are always on the lookout for well-prepared people in the fields of international law, diplomacy, intercultural communications, and NGO experience to discuss this idea.

Studying the application form from the UN for recognition of a Non-Governmental Organisation (NGO), I discovered that one does not have to be human to be represented! How delightful…

Addressing the inevitable challenges we can assume we will face when we arrive at the United Nations, from those who do not accept that we can truthfully represent the dolphins – we can hear them now: “When have you, or anyone, ever had a meaningful conversation with a dolphin? What right do you have to represent them?” – we have carefully developed a four-point agenda. We feel that no one can realistically assert that dolphins, whales, and porpoises would NOT want these four rights to be recognized:

Four-part agenda of the Cetacean Nation at the UN
Safe  Universal protection from intentional harm. This will require diplomacy, as some cultures still believe cetaceans are food
Clean  Clean water in which to live. All water, everywhere, flows to the Oceans. We must stop pollution and clean the waters of the world.
Quiet  No sonic pollution of the oceans. Commercial and Military uses of sound in the oceans must be reduced to harmless levels.
Peace  An end to war. Humans must stop killing each other-- as a prerequisite to peace for all.

If you feel that you have skills or resources to offer to this effort, please contact us. I have many details developed in our strategic plan, requiring support from a large team of dedicated people.

Would you like to join us in taking the voice of the dolphins to the United Nations?

Join us for discussion of these ideas at: http://groups.google.com/group/dolphinembassy

C. Scott Taylor, PhD
Ambassador