Breaking news from the whale wars

[tc]

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A ScubaBoard Staff Message...

A lot of off topic, inappropriate and just plain mean posts have been deleted. Posts quoting them were also deleted.

It's OK to disagree with someones opinion- It's not OK to attack them for their thoughts or beliefs. That is part of the ScubaBoard Terms of Service and like it or not it is a condition of participating in this forum.

Due to the size of the mess in this thread I'm sure I accidentally got a few that were probably OK and probably missed a few that should have gone as well, Sorry- but when I find 337 posts that need to be deleted I don't take the time to read every one word for word- the second I see even one thing in the post that is objectionable I click delete.

Should anyone wish to continue any of the off topic discussions that were deleted feel free to do so- in the appropriate forums.

Please try to stay on topic, there have already been two moderator cleanups so there will be no more warnings- anything off topic or attacking another user here will be immediately deleted and the poster banned from the thread.

This is a topic that many folks here clearly feel strongly about, try to respect the fact that we won't all share the same opinion.

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Another note- posts discussing deletions belong in site support or you can PM me. Do NOT post them here.
If you have an issue with the moderating please feel free to email abuse@scubaboard.com

 

[DennisS]

Dolphins have shown the ability to recognize pregnancy just days after insemination, and since they communicate with the same tools they use to sonar the body and see the days old infant, who is to say the conversation between the society and the newest member doesn't start well before birth. There is even a decent possibility telepathy is used, because in some cooperative hunting the clicks and squeaks stop for the sneaking up part, yet they still seem to work in concert. Below is a picture of a pregnant spinner dolphin, followed by a bunch of younger spinners. Who is to say mom and friends were not giving the unborn baby it's first experience of human on scooter with a combined mental imaging telepathy? What is smart?

What is smart?

It appears that dolphins are brutally attacking other sea mammals and even their own young, killing them with prolonged beatings staged with clinical precision, but biologists are unable to determine a reason why.
The murderous behaviour has been spotted in only two places, Scotland and Virginia. In 1997, scientists began finding the badly beaten corpses of young dolphins washing up on Virginia’s beaches at the same time as harbour porpoises in Scotland were washing up with similar injuries. At first the deaths were blamed on oil rigs or navy ships causing sonic trauma, but it soon became apparent the injuries were too severe to be anything other than an attack. Then they found an unexpected bit of evidence, dolphin teeth marks. And in 2004, Scottish researchers found a dead porpoise with cuts and puncture wounds that could have only been caused by a bottle-nosed dolphin.
Then came further evidence against the sea mammals. Two videos shot by vacationing tourists captured a dolphin killing a porpoise. And after viewing the videos, marine biologist Dr. Ben Wilson discovered that the dolphins were using their ultrasound abilities to identify and locate the vital organs of the animals they attacked and aim for those parts.
Dr. Wilson said: “The blows are carefully targeted. And the attacks are sustained, sometimes up to 30 minutes. The film was a key piece of evidence. It crystalised our suspicions. We realised the dolphins’ victim was trying to escape from being attacked with such force that any one single blow could kill it. It was, Oh my God!, the animals I’ve been studying for the last 10 years are killing these porpoises.”
More disturbing than anything is researchers’ tentative explanation of the behavior. There is no shortage of food in the locations where the attacks occurred, and it doesn’t appear to be a territorial dispute. Dolphins would just chase another animal out of their territory, but these animals are hounded to the death rather than just driven away. The dolphins likely kill their own young out of a mating instinct, but the only theory about the harbor porpoises is that they happen to be the same size as the young dolphins. They believe the animals are killed as a sort dolphin practice, in preparation for killing their own young.

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

DennisS; My post was in response to a sasy post, on the topic of humans eating whales, which is close to the topic of the thread IMHO. Your post however just seems to be an excuse for you to be verbose off topic. Below is why I introduced my dolphin info, why have you introduced yours?

I think anything that is non-human and not endangered is fair game for eating, personally. I am quite sure that if whales were smarter than us, they'd be harpooning us from the ocean for dinner. That's the way the world works.

 

[Sas]

DennisS; My post was in response to a sasy post, on the topic of humans eating whales, which is close to the topic of the thread IMHO. Your post however just seems to be an excuse for you to be verbose off topic. Below is why I introduced my dolphin info, why have you introduced yours?

I think his response fits in quite well with the discussion. I believe your dolphin post was initially about how animals might be more evolved than us for not going around killing things and how they have nice social structures, etc. He makes a good point that non-human animals can be just as vicious and destructive as us - which was my point about whales harpooning us for dinner if they could.

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

We are talking about hunting a meal aren't we?

 

[Sas]

We are talking about hunting a meal aren't we?

That's not what I thought those quotes were about... the hunting of a meal did come up at some point but I'm pretty sure things had moved on by that point and we were talking about intelligence of animals, and whether that should factor in to whether we eat them or not.

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

I was staying on topic by questioning your contention that it is OK for us to eat Minke whales because they are not endangered and if they were smarter than us they would be eating us.

I questioned how the ability to eat something made the eater smarter than the eaten, when clearly some animals that are only instinctual eat animals that are smart; like eels eating octopus.

Orca play with their food and that is often social and training for the young it would appear, but relating it to humans right to eat anything they are able to kill is only what you want to bring the conversation to; because you like GeoffH really do not want to talk about the original topics of this thread and both your first posts here which were so wrong as to be something you want to stray far, far from.

 

[DennisS]

DennisS; My post was in response to a sasy post, on the topic of humans eating whales, which is close to the topic of the thread IMHO. Your post however just seems to be an excuse for you to be verbose off topic. Below is why I introduced my dolphin info, why have you introduced yours?

It was a response to the paragragh mentioning dolphin telepathy. I had to bring in a little dolphin reality if we're going down that road.

I hear Donovan in the backround, "Waay Down Waay Over the Ocean, where I wanna be"

 

[MauiScubaSteve]

For a post supposedly going down the road of dolphin telepathy, it had surprisingly little mention of telepathy. About as much as it contained pertinent topic of this thread.

 

[Sas]

To me it looked like the Japanese ship was turning to avoid the ship, expecting them to act like a normal boat and continue on its path. What the Ady Gil did, was slow down for impact and then speed up at the last minute. Either they did it deliberately or they have no seamanship skills. Either is inexcuseable in the unhospitable environment they were in. But yea who really knows exactly for sure what either captain's intentions are. Neither is to be trusted but yea if you are heaps bigger you are going to win so the SS captain put their crew in a huge amount of danger whether the Japanese did it deliberately or not.

The actions of SS have led to more whales being killed than would have otherwise been. Japan doesn't need the meat anymore but who would admit defeat to a bunch of "smelly hippies in little boats" (as I am sure they are viewed as)?

Why was my first post so wrong and off topic halemano?