I. CAPTIVITY IS NEEDLESS
1. With a scientific plan
If the experiments done on captive dolphins in the laboratory are considered essential for what we know about them, the same psychophysiological or ethocognitive research could be undertaken perfectly well in a natural environment, without constraints, without pain, in direct cooperation with the subjects of the experiment.
Nothing prevents us from imagining that
such investigations could be carried out along the coasts
of small, sheltered bays where the dolphins voluntarily
enter and that they can leave in the same manner.
In a text titled "Third Phase Alternative to Dolphin
Captivity" (Dexter Cate), Ken
LeVasseur suggests a progressive passage between the
research in confined pools and a genuine dialog with wild
dolphins.
Learning a common intermediary language (see the works of
Wayne Bateau) constitutes in this regard here and now an
indispensible first hurtle.
Observation of wild dolphins (see the
work of Denise Herzing) moreover represents an
inexhaustible source of discoveries that are infinitely
richer than laboratory data.
The study of their behaviors and their communication
systems has only just recently begun.
We know nearly nothing about most cetaceans.
2. With a pedagogical plan
Far from discovering the marvelous complexity of cetacean life, dolphinariums do the contrary by making children believe that the dolphin is a "spectacle", an "object for amusement", a "domestic animal" gentile, subservient and as loyal as a dog, like we see on the television series "Flipper".
Shows emit a clear message: "Nature
voluntarily submits itself to Man and even the most
liberated beings in the world, the least likely to be
maintained in captivity, belong to us and we make them
dance for you!"
To say "hello" with its flipper, to nod its
head like a human, catch fish in the air, hold itself
straight up moreover reinforces the idea that the dolphin
tries to imitate us with a charming awkwardness. In
return, no show lets us see the multitude of its social
behaviors or hunting techniques, nor the prodigious
finesse of its echolocation. To really see how a dolphin
swims it must be seen out at sea.
So emphasizes the Great
Ape Project regarding great apes, the fundamental
impossibility of maintaining in an acceptable manner in
captivity mammals of superior intelligence for whom
cognitive and social life constitutes the essence of
reality.
Dolphins, elephants, gorillas, chimpanzees and orangutans
are all mammals that have a very high cognitive
potential.
Their life expectancy is important and all benefit from
an extremely prolonged childhood, during which their
parents charge themselves with their education and
transmitting their proper savoir-faire.
They are thus "cultural
beings", living in the "third world" (Popper
& Eccles, 1989) that interweave their rules of
relationships, social identity, language, esthetic
emotion, filial attachments or friendly and moral values
such as altruism, encouragement of talent or the sense of
the common well being (F. De Waal, 1995).
In the context where the regard of another builds and
reinforces the sensation of existence, isolation is felt
as a serious punishment.
For man, life imprisonment often replaces
the death penalty.
When this isolation becomes total - for example, in
solitary confinement - hallucinations happen very
quickly, then complete dementia and death by suicide.
Simple clinical observation teaches us that chimpanzees and dolphins demonstrate exactly the same reactions as we do under the same circumstances. For them also, it is inconceivable to live far from others, far from the world with which they are familiar.
A chimpanzee is only a TRUE chimpanzee
when it is in the forest, surrounded by its group,
hunting.
It is in staying in a tree, and not in a zoo or a
laboratory, that it could express the entire range of
behaviors and that it earns in this manner its proper
identity.
If necessary, New World monkeys, mongooses, seals or sea otters can survive in captivity and be satisfied by the presence of a few companions.
However, for these highly encephalized cetaceans beings, no form of captivity, no cage, no special facilities, no pool, even Olympic-sized, will ever replace the simple pleasure of living free in the wild.
In no way could the captivity imposed on
dolphins replace the fantastic sensorial and social
diversity that they know in the natural environment.
Enclosure is for them, particularly, a treatment of
extreme cruelty that comes to reinforce the measures of
discipline imposed on stubborn dolphins (rationing and
isolation). We remember to finish that these
"combats to death" don't exist in the ocean,
even if certain conflicts are sometimes resolved in a
violent manner.
The dolphinarium is the only place
where dolphins struggle until death.
The only place where they bump their heads against walls
or let themselves die of despair.
The only place where mothers accidentally crush their own
newborns.
The only place that resembles Hell...