Look, we all love dolphins, but...

Chris Smyth writes:

"A dire and grievous tragedy", declares one poster on Times Online. "As usual men and wargames in pursuit of earth domination causing havoc and death to countless beings," sonorously laments another.

They are talking about dolphins. Specifically, the 26 who have died on the banks of the Percuil river near Falmouth. In the week that the 100th British serviceman was killed in Afghanistan, and dozens died when a passenger jet burst into flames at Khartoum airport, isn' t this just a little over the top?

Not according to The Sun, which led the front page today on "dolphingate", with more inside speculating that killer whales might have been to blame (under the admittedly quite good headline "Shock 'n Orca"). Suspicion has also fallen on the Navy, which has admitted having ships and submarines on operations in the area using "short-range side-scan sonar".

A Ministry of Defence spokesman claimed, however, this was "extremely unlikely" to have affected the dolphins' echolocation systems. Experts seem to agree. "To single the Navy out is unfair," says Ian Boyd, an expert in sea mammals at St Andrew's University. "You might just as well point the finger at fishing boats or car ferries" - all of whom use sonar.

"There's a lot of sound being put into the water by man but we don't as yet understand the effects on marine mammals. It may not affect them at all."

Professor Boyd explains that the type of naval sonar recognised as affecting dolphins doesn't seem to have been a factor in Cornwall. "It's used for hunting submarines and wouldn't be used this close to the coast".

So what did cause the dolphins to beach themselves? We await for the post-mortem results, but possible theories include illness interfering with the animals' navigation system, chasing a shoal of fish too close to land, or simply getting lost. 

But we can at least agree that this is a tragedy for Britain's dolphins? Apparently not. "The biological significance for the population is not significant at all," Professor Boyd says. Set against the tens or hundreds of thousands of dolphins thought to live in British waters, 26 dead counts for little, he says, however distressing the sight might be.

Nor is there any evidence that mass strandings are becoming more common. It's been happening "for many, many centuries," says Professor Boyd. "Long before we invented sonar." The reports might be getting more frequent (this morning about 50 dolphins were reported stranded in Madagascar), but that doesn't mean it's actually happening any more often.

"If it had happened in the Outer Hebrides rather than Cornwall rather than Cornwall it wouldn't have got the same publicity," Professor Boyd suggests. "It's one of those stories that have gone up in prominence but probably shouldn't be there."

Comments

[Dagny]

All life is valuable, but in the cycle of life comes death. Let's just be thankful for our lives and live each day to the fullest.

Dagny
www.onnotextiles.com
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[Dagny]

All life is valuable, but in the cycle of life comes death. Let's just be thankful for our lives and live each day to the fullest.

Dagny
www.onnotextiles.com
organic apparel

[Dagny]

All life is valuable, but in the cycle of life comes death. Let's just be thankful for our lives and live each day to the fullest.

Dagny
www.onnotextiles.com
organic apparel

[Dagny]

All life is valuable, but in the cycle of life comes death. Let's just be thankful for our lives and live each day to the fullest.

Dagny
www.onnotextiles.com
organic apparel

[Dagny]

All life is valuable, but in the cycle of life comes death. Let's just be thankful for our lives and live each day to the fullest.

Dagny
www.onnotextiles.com
organic apparel

[BlankDiploma]

Wow. This comments section is truly showcasing some of the more insane members of the human race.

Anybody who believes that the life of a dolphin is equal to the life of a human needs to step back and SERIOUSLY re-evaluate their life, because that's just plain stupid.

[FJ]

Dolphins or dead servicemen - it is still a tragedy, no matter who is involved. Speciesism - as is on view here - is the main reason, along with greed, why the planet is in the mess it is in.
There may not be much of a 'biological significance' in these 26 dolphin deaths, but neither is there any 'biological significance' in the deaths of 100 servicemen in Afghanistan, or any children killed in accidents, but all these events are still tragic.

[David W B]

"...Outer Hebrides rather than Cornwall rather than Cornwall it wouldn't have got the same publicity"

Please fire your editor.

[Dave]

As callous as this will sound I think that 26 dolphins dying of the 10-100 000 of them there are in Britain's waters is just as insignificant as the deaths of 100 of the ~60 000 000 people there are in Britain.

Dolphins and other aquatic life beach for a number of reasons and always have done. I think its a massive stretch to blame this on sonar. No the dolphins didn't harm anyone and they ended up dying, yes its sad. Just because they didn't harm anyone doesn't mean they can't or shouldn't die. The difference is that the dolphins dying was unavoidable because it happens naturally. 100 servicemen dying in Afghanistan is arguably avoidable for us as humans. But war is in our nature as loathsome as that fact may be.

Basically, If someone wants to talk about some dead dolphins in their paper, more power to them. Don't complain because you're not getting enough coverage for hitting the 100 dead mark in the war. How many times do you want to hear about it really? What will it achieve? It's just another chance for people to moan about the government, which people do anyway regardless of what government is in charge.

And to all those complaining about humans killing animals, all animals kill that which is below them. The fact you refer to yourself as a human in a way that would suggest a human is not an animal but above it, contradicts anything you would like people to believe regarding your beliefs on the equality of life. I personally value a human life more than the life of a dolphin but the death of any animal is regretful to some extent. It's in every animals instinct and interest to value the life of its species higher than others. That's how they survive. If you seriously believe that you would be more upset if someone killed a dolphin than you would be if someone killed a person you know then there is something seriously wrong.

[Haralambos Petrokolos]

What's worse killing dolphins inadvertently as may have happened in this case or going out and hunting them for sushi?

[alice hudson]

I care for those people dying and killed but not so deeply as I do for the dolphins or any other animal for that matter. We bring a lot of our misery upon ourselves (as a species I mean, a child born with AIDS has nothing to do with it), through greed, and we visit unspeakable horrors upon the animals who share this planet. Humans superior? I think not. And if so, what's the point when we use that 'superiority' to destroy the planet.

[alice hudson]

I care for those people dying and killed but not so deeply as I do for the dolphins or any other animal for that matter. We bring a lot of our misery upon ourselves (as a species I mean, a child born with AIDS has nothing to do with it), through greed, and we visit unspeakable horrors upon the animals who share this planet. Humans superior? I think not. And if so, what's the point when we use that 'superiority' to destroy the planet.

[M Stone]

Humans believe themselves special for several reasons. One is that we are able to show moral judgement and compassion.

To live up to our self-designated superiority, we should live by these ideals. Therefore, to show compassion to animals that were suffering (possibly at our own hand) we are demonstrating that humans are indeed moral beings and that there is hope for our race. To ignore suffering, to belittle the pain of both animals and the rescuers makes me very concerned about our species. Would we deserve to say we are superior if we were to act like that and ignore such a sad event?

There are many actions that humans take that have and do cause animals to suffer and species to go extinct. As moral creatures, we should address this. If we do not then surely the moral fabric of society would dissolve, as then nothing really matters. We need a healthy environment, so we can eat, breathe and live. The ecosystem is a complex web, take away too many components (i.e. species) and there is a risk it will collapse. Then where will we be?

And, of course who is to say that humans are superior? How can the judge be the judged?

[Brien Comerford]

Warmongers killing dolphins. Savages eating gorillas, bonobos, orangutans and hippos. The clubbing of baby seals and whaling, Slaughterhouses, hunting, trapping, vivisection and fur farms. Mankind is massacring God's animal kingdom with the utmost irreverence.

[Charlotte]

Who did the dolphins ever harm? Several thousand fish, for a start...or do only mammals count?

If all lives are equal then many animals are brutal killers. Even some of the cute ones. Of course beached dolphins are sad, but it's hardly a catastrophe.

[Sandyman]

What exactly was the RNLI doing there? I hope the money we give isn't being used to rescue sea creatures?

[Sandyman]

What exactly was the RNLI doing there? I hope the money we give isn't being used to rescue sea creatures?

[James Whale]

I suppose we're only over-reacting if we take a relativistic view on the loss of life, based on number of lives lost and what order of organism dies.

If one believes that the loss of any life is lamentable, then all deaths are newsworthy and eligible for sympathy and reflection - it is only the limitations of our own mental capacity to process all such occurrences that forces us to filter them, regarding some as more important than others.

[Mark]

What's with the 'but'? You'd have been wise to stop at the 'we all love dolphins'. It all depends on how you value life and whether you apply a sliding scale. Clearly you're of the 'they're only animals' viewpoint which belittles your own precious life.

Interesting you compare the reporting of these tragic deaths to the pointless deaths of human beings in Afghanistan; is the "biological significance for the population" of those deaths to the 6 billion of us on the Earth not also insignificant?

My reaction is based on empathy with my fellow creature, human or dolphin, not on biological significance.

[Dean]

The death of living mammals is never nice, especially when they are innocent.

Who did the dolphins ever harm?

In isolation the incident off the cornish coast seems to be at most upsetting. But what about when associated with the recent (2006) death of upto 400 dolphins off of the coast of Zanzibar?

http://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2006/05/0501_060501_dolphins.html

I find this intriguing...