Killing dolphins

I was surprised to read recently that an internationally regarded yachtsman on a family cruise with his wife and young child thought it ok to kill and eat a dolphin as it "complimented our normal diet nicely". How gross.

Why dont you think it's ok to eat em? I would if i could catch one.
 
Is it??????? B*gger. I always thought that Ciguatera was only a problem with fish which had been feeding on reefs, Dolphin are open ocean fish.



Dug out "the cruisers handbook of fishing"



Phew, I've eaten loads, delicious. :cool:

Phew for me as well! It is a really nice fish!

Apparently it depends on where they catch it.... if its inshore then its a risk... (As it eats reef dwelling creatures...) but offshore is much safer.... apparently.
 
Why dont you think it's ok to eat em? I would if i could catch one.

No no no , please don't eat flipper! :(

They´re my friends, offshore I´ve seen them feeding half mile away then they spot the boat and come for a play.
And there usually seems to be 1 teeneager showing off with how crazy he can jump.
And the nightime phosphorescence dolphin shaped tunnel of light round the boat. Absolutely increadable.

Eat your own dog or cat or horse maybe it that's your thing bit surely not flipper. :eek:
 
Looking for Flipper but all we found was Nemo...

nemo.jpg
 
I queried a waitress whilst in Florida when I saw dolphin on the menu. I just had to ask if I was about to order Flipper. She looked absolutely appalled that I would even think they would be serving Flipper. It was nice but not as nice a whale.
 
Going back to SAWDOC's original post, I wonder why some fellow carnivores feel that eating dolphin, a large mammal, is in some way "worse" than eating other mammals, such as cows and pigs, both of which strike me as being reasonably intelligent beasts. In addition to the aforementioned, I have eaten seal steak, sheep, goat, deer, oryx, kangaroo, and may have eaten horse at some stage, although not all at one sitting. Is it somehow better to eat them raher than dolphin?

And if it wasn't for the oil industry, we'd have run out of whales years ago. Better stop, as I'm in danger of convincing myself to go veggie....
 
I blame our squeamishness on Walt Disney. Flipper, Lassie and Skippy, swam, ran or hopped to the rescue making them off-limits as far as our menus are concerned.

Saying that I'll never eat a meerkat again.
 
Lovely story, isn't it. Folklore has it that to boat that shot at Jack was later wrecked in the pass which jack guided ships through, but never agin the Penguin after they shot at him! I read another nice blog which I've never been able to find since. A yacht in the caribbean managed to cut free a dolphin which had been caught in a rope or net or something around a buoy. For a few weeks afterwards ( think they were anchored nearby, which is how they saw it in the first place) the dolphin would swim on one side to show the fin which had been caught and deposited lots of shiney things from the sea floor in their dinghy, lots beer bottle tops but also an old medal.

I'm no bleeding heart and believe that morality only exists inside our heads, but flipper - well he's special :) :)
 
>You need to be very carefull with it as it is a common vector for Ciguatera fish poisoning...


Sorry, that's not true. No oceanic fish carry Ciguatera. The fish that do carry them are predatory reef fish which feed on fish that have eaten on a poisoned reef. The biggest culprits are Barracuda and the bigger the predator the bigger the danger. A small Barracuda, no more than 2 pounds, is safe to eat.

There lots of of old wives tales about checking for Ciguatera including it turns a spoon black. If you cut a small piece it will make your lip tingle may or may nor be true but I wouldn't like to try it.

An antidote to Ciguartera has been developed by the University of Hawaii. However it needs be kept cold to remain effective. I looked into buying some but if the fridge fails...

There is a poisoned reef on Rotunda island in the Caribbean. If we were inshore fishing, or fishing off the boat, we always aked the locals if there is Ciguatera in the nearby reefs.
 
Humans are strange creatures - on an impersonal level we ruthlessly exploit animals in all sorts of ways, but when they get close up and personal our attitude changes.

A dolphin is a large mammal. A cow is a large mammal. There is no reason why one should not be as good to eat as the other.

For some arbitrary reason, some animals are considered more charismatic than some others, and so are considered unsuitable as food. That does not stop us from exploiting dolphins and whales by holding them captive for our amusement.

I have just now seen a program called "Untamed and Uncut" on Discovery channel, showing a deer hit by a motor vehicle. Witnesses gathered around, one with a video camera. The doe died pretty quickly. They noticed movement in her abdomen. One person grabbed a utility knife and did a ceasarean section. (See even I use euphemisms. He cut the doe open).

Two fawns were released. One started breathing, the other did not. The guy then did expired air resuscitation on it!

Don't let me get started on how people spend huge amounts of money on their sick/aged companion animals (pets) when there are humans desperately in need.

From the less Antrhopomorphic documentaries I've seen, dolphins of various species appear to go in for gang rape by way of courtship, infanticide and of course they kill harbour porpoise either for fun or because they are competition - jurys out on that.
I think because they are graceful, appear to smile and occasionally interact with humans they get good press.
 
Nor am I too sure where you get the notion that they do it just for fun. Isn't that the same kind of anthropomorphic nonsense that you condemn when you describe the smile as an illusion?

I don't see anything anthropomorphic about ascribing (to de-emotivate it) 'delaying the kill' to the behaviour of dolphins - cats do it. And its "toying" whether a cat does it or a dolphin does it.
You have tried to suggest that only humans have the ability to be cruel, why should you think or hope that that is the case?
 
Never mind the dolphin and its anthrowhatever.

Do you have any idea how much they shag??

They are at it all the time. Quick bite to eat, bit of juicy tuna, then its hey baby, gonna give YOU some.

Really, they are at it constant. Never mind jokes abot 'got a willy like a fighting dogs ear', they go for it.

My wife works on a boat that does tourist tours (watch the dolphins) and we get some interesting table talk.

Be reincarnated as a dolphin love machine but get in the queue.
 
Nor am I too sure where you get the notion that they do it just for fun.

A biologist's view is that no animal, and humans are animals, does anything "just for fun". All behaviour, no matter how apparently frivolous, is for a survival purpose, of the individual and definitely of the species. In short, dolphins "delay the kill" in order to practise the skills of hunting the prey. This is particularly important if the offspring of the animals need a great deal of practise before they become proficient enough to survive on their own.

If you google [animals appear to toy with their prey] you will find plenty of reading material, including a link to a google book

The cat: its behavior, nutrition, & health By Linda P. Case

The link itself is much too untidy to include here. It describes a range of cat behaviors which are puzzling and upsetting to the cats' owners, but which can be interpreted as maintenance of predatory skills.
 
What's the problem we catch an eat everything else!!!!
This doesn't mean I would encourage the hunting of "Flippers" but we humans have a very ambiguous stance on these matters.
 
A biologist's view is that no animal, and humans are animals, does anything "just for fun". All behaviour, no matter how apparently frivolous, is for a survival purpose...

Yeah? well I went out for dinner with my wife on Saturday. Now I could have killed a cat and eaten that if i wanted to hone my survival skills, but I suggest we did it just for fun. (Dinner, not cat killing)

It could also be argued by the rabidly reductionist behavioralists amongst us that going out for dinner is a survival skill but I suspect that our evolutionary rate is too slow for dining skills to be considered useful to us by the good ol' selfish gene.

Having very carefully NOT drawn a distinction between human behaviour and cat behaviour (though I tend to avoid licking my own ring in public) I don't think you can make the distinction when the argument is also reversed in favour of cats or dolphins having fun either. Though I suspect the lack of opposable thumbs precludes full silver service and the use of a corkscrew.
 
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I don't see anything anthropomorphic about ascribing (to de-emotivate it) 'delaying the kill' to the behaviour of dolphins - cats do it. And its "toying" whether a cat does it or a dolphin does it.
You have tried to suggest that only humans have the ability to be cruel, why should you think or hope that that is the case?
Que?

I have re-read this thread several times and can find nowhere that I have mentioned "humans" never mind suggesting that only they have the ability to be cruel or that I think or hope that this is the case.

What I thought I said is that it is utter nonsense to suggest that what we refer to as "toying" with their prey demonstrates that dolphins derive some kind of sadistic pleasure from this behaviour.
 
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