Sunday, January 03, 2010

Non-human Persons

Since the bottle-nosed dolphin has a brain that is second only to the human brain, perhaps they need to be considered to be non-human persons. They can recognize themselves in a mirror and use the mirror to view hard-to-see portions of their own bodies. A wild dolphin was taught to tail-walk in captivity. When released it taught others in the wild to tail-walk. They teach each other to use sponges to protect their snouts as they root for spiny fish in the seafloor.

Killer whales may be a different matter...

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