Dolphins are often regarded as one of Earth's most intelligent
animals. They are social, living in pods of up to a dozen individuals.
In places with a high abundance of food, pods can merge temporarily,
forming a superpod; such groupings may exceed 1,000 dolphins.
Individuals communicate using a variety of clicks, whistles and other
vocalizations. They make ultrasonic sounds for echolocation. Membership
in pods is not rigid; interchange is common. However, dolphins can
establish strong social bonds; they will stay with injured or ill
individuals, even helping them to breathe by bringing them to the
surface if needed.
Thousands of dolphin are being killed everyday for meat. :(
Dolphins also display culture, something long believed to be
unique to humans. Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins are known to teach
their young to use tools. They cover their snouts with sponges to
protect them while foraging. This knowledge is mostly transferred by
mothers to daughters. Using sponges as mouth protection is a learned
behavior. Another learned behavior was discovered among river dolphins
in Brazil, where some male dolphins use weeds and sticks as part of a
sexual display.
Play is an important part of dolphin culture. Dolphins play with
seaweed and play-fight with other dolphins. At times they harass other
local creatures, like seabirds and turtles. Dolphins enjoy riding waves
and frequently surf coastal swells and the bow waves of boats, at times
“leaping” between the dual bow waves of a moving catamaran.
Occasionally, they playfully interact with swimmers.
Dolphins at Risk
Some dolphin species face an uncertain future, especially some
river dolphin species such as the Amazon river dolphin, and the Ganges
and Yangtze river dolphin, which are critically or seriously endangered.
A 2006 survey found no individuals of the Yangtze river dolphin, which
now appears to be functionally extinct.
Pesticides, heavy metals, plastics, and other industrial and
agricultural pollutants that do not disintegrate rapidly in the
environment concentrate in predators such as dolphins. Injuries or
deaths due to collisions with boats, especially their propellers, are
also common.
Various fishing methods, most notably purse seine fishing for tuna
and the use of drift and gill nets, kill many dolphins. By-catch in
gill nets and incidental captures in antipredator nets that protect
marine fish farms are common and pose a risk for mainly local dolphin
populations. In some parts of the world, such as Taiji in Japan and the
Faroe Islands, dolphins are killed in harpoon or drive hunts. Dolphin
meat is high in mercury, and may thus pose a health danger to humans
when consumed.
Dolphin safe labels attempt to reassure consumers fish and other
marine products have been caught in a dolphin-friendly way. The original
deal with "Dolphin safe" labels was brokered in the 1980s between
marine activists and the major tuna companies, and involved decreasing
incidental dolphin kills by up to 50% by changing the type of nets being
used to catch the tuna. Dolphins continue to be netted while fishermen
are in pursuit of smaller tuna. Albacore are not netted this way, which
makes albacore the only truly dolphin-safe tuna.
Loud underwater noises, such as those resulting from naval sonar
use, live firing exercises, or certain offshore construction projects,
such as wind farms, may be harmful to dolphins, increasing stress,
damaging hearing, and causing decompression sickness by forcing them to
surface too quickly to escape the noise.
A number of militaries have employed dolphins for various purposes
from finding mines to rescuing lost or trapped humans. The military use
of dolphins drew scrutiny during the Vietnam War when rumors circulated
that the United States Navy was training dolphins to kill Vietnamese
divers. Dolphins are still being trained by the United States Navy on
other tasks as part of the U.S. Navy Marine Mammal Program. The Russian
military is believed to have closed its marine mammal program in the
early 1990s. In 2000 the press reported that dolphins trained to kill by
the Soviet Navy had been sold to Iran.
Dolphin Drive Hunting
Dolphin drive hunting, also called dolphin drive fishing, is a
method of hunting dolphins and occasionally other small cetaceans by
driving them together with boats and then usually into a bay or onto a
beach. Their escape is prevented by closing off the route to the open
sea or ocean with boats and nets. Dolphins are hunted this way in
several places around the world, including the Solomon Islands, the
Faroe Islands, Peru, and Japan, the most well-known practitioner of this
method. Dolphins are mostly hunted for their meat; some are captured
and end up in dolphinariums.
Despite the highly controversial nature of the hunt resulting in
international criticism, and the possible health risk that the often
polluted meat causes, many thousands of dolphins are caught in drive
hunts each year.
In Japan, Striped, Spotted, Risso's, and Bottlenose dolphins are
most commonly hunted, but several other species such as the False Killer
Whale are also occasionally caught. A small number of Orcas have been
caught in the past. Relatively few Striped Dolphins are found in the
coastal waters, probably due to hunting.
The Japanese town of Taiji on the Kii peninsula is as of now the
only town in Japan where drive hunting still takes place on a large
scale. In the town of Futo the last known hunt took place in 2004. In
2007 Taiji wanted to step up its dolphin hunting programs, approving an
estimated ¥330 million for the construction of a massive cetacean
slaughterhouse in an effort to popularize the consumption of dolphins in
the country.
Dolphin welfare advocacy groups such as Earth Island Institute,
Surfers for Cetaceans and Dolphin Project Inc., assert that the number
of dolphins and porpoises killed is estimated at 25,000 per year.
In Japan, the hunting is done by a select group of fishermen. When
a pod of dolphins has been spotted, they're driven into a bay by the
fishermen while banging on metal rods in the water to scare and confuse
the dolphins. When the dolphins are in the bay, it is quickly closed off
with nets so the dolphins cannot escape. The dolphins are usually not
caught and killed immediately, but instead left to calm down over night.
The following day, the dolphins are caught one by one and killed. The
killing of the animals used to be done by slitting their throats, but
the Japanese government banned this method and now dolphins may
officially only be killed by driving a metal pin into the neck of the
dolphin. It is not clear if this ban is strictly enforced however.
Some of the captured dolphins are left alive and taken to
dolphinariums. Dolphins have also been exported to the United States for
several parks including the well known SeaWorld parks. The US National
Marine Fisheries Service has refused a permit for Marine World Africa
USA on one occasion to import four False Killer Whales caught in a
Japanese drive hunt. In recent years, dolphins from the Japanese drive
hunts have been exported to China, Taiwan and to Egypt. On multiple
occasions, members of the International Marine Animal Trainers
Association (IMATA) have also been observed at the drive hunts in Japan.
Protest and campaigns are now common in Taiji. Some of the animal
welfare organizations campaigning against the drive hunts are Sea
Shepherd, One Voice, Blue Voice, the Whale and Dolphin Conservation
Society, and the World Society for the Protection of Animals. Since much
of the criticism is the result of photos and videos taken during the
hunt and slaughter, it is now common for the final capture and slaughter
to take place on site inside a tent or under a plastic cover, out of
sight from the public.
On a smaller scale, drive hunting for dolphins also takes place on
the Solomon Islands, more specifically on the island of Malaita.
Dolphin's teeth are also used in jewelry and as currency on the island.
The dolphins are hunted in a similar fashion as in Japan, using stones
instead of metal rods to produce sounds to scare and confuse the
dolphins. Various species are hunted, such as Spotted and Spinner
dolphins. The amount of dolphins killed each year is not known, but
anecdotal information suggests between 600 and 1500 dolphins per hunting
season. The hunting season lasts roughly from December to April, when
the dolphins are closest to shore. As in Japan, some dolphins
(exclusively Bottlenoses) from the Solomon Islands have also been sold
to the entertainment industry. There was much controversy in July 2003,
when 28 Indo-Pacific bottlenose dolphins (Tursiops trancatus aduncus)
were exported to Parque Nizuc, a water park in Cancun. A large portion
of the animals were later transported to Cozumel, to do interaction
programs. Though the export of dolphins had been banned in 2005, the
export of dolphins was resumed in October 2007 when the ban was lifted
following a court decision, allowing for 28 dolphins to be sent to a
dolphinarium in Dubai. A further three dolphins were found dead near the
holding pens. The dealer that exported these dolphins has stated that
they intend to release their 17 remaining dolphins back into the wild in
the future.
On the Faroe Islands mainly Pilot Whales are killed by drive hunts
for their meat. Other species are also killed on rare occasion such as
the Northern bottlenose whale and Atlantic White-sided Dolphin. The hunt
is known by the locals as the Grindadráp. There are no fixed hunting
seasons, as soon as a pod close enough to land is spotted fishermen set
out to begin the hunt. The animals are driven onto the beach with boats,
blocking off the way to the ocean. When on the beach, most of them get
stuck. Those that have remained too far in the water are dragged onto
the beach by putting a hook in their blowhole. When on land, they are
killed by cutting down to the major arteries and spinal cord at the
neck. The time it takes for a dolphin to die varies from a few seconds
to a few minutes, depending on the cut. When the fishermen fail to beach
the animals all together, they are let free again. About a thousand
pilot whales are killed this way each year on the Faroe Islands together
with usually a few dozen up to a few hundred animals belonging to other
small cetaceans species, but numbers vary greatly per year. The brutal
appearance of the hunt has resulted in international criticism
especially from animal welfare organizations. As in Japan, the meat is
contaminated with mercury and cadmium, causing a health risk for those
frequently eating it.
Though it is forbidden under Peruvian law to hunt dolphins or eat
their meat, a large number of dolphins are still killed illegally by
fishermen each year. Although exact numbers are not known, the Peruvian
organization Mundo Azul (Blue World) estimates that at least a thousand
are killed annually. To catch the dolphins, they are driven together
with boats and encircled with nets, then harpooned, dragged on to the
boat, and clubbed to death if still alive. Various species are hunted,
such as the Bottlenose and Dusky Dolphin.
On the Penghu Islands in Taiwan, drive fishing of Bottlenose
Dolphins was practiced until 1990, when the practice was outlawed by the
government. Mainly Indian Ocean Bottlenose Dolphins but also common
Bottlenose Dolphins were captured in these hunts.