We're slow, but we're getting there.Follow

It was only a few decades ago that scientists and medical scientists insisted that animals didn't have emotions like we did, let alone some kind of sentience. I remembered being really angry with one of my best friends who was in med school, participating in animal experiments, when she insisted to me that "animals don't feel pain like we do". I tried arguing the point, and she pulled out what she was taught in class, and how "reading animal traits like human traits is just anthropomorphizing them. There's no logical reason to think that they are conscious of pain".

Dolphin trainers have been working up a sign language to direct their performing animals for a while. I didn't know it, but they already have a sign (the one they co-opted makes me giggle) to tell/ask a dolphin to make up a new trick by itself. Now the trainers have figured out that dolphins are smart enough to put the sign "together" with "create new trick". When asked to do so, two dolphins conferred below water, and then performed a syncronised trick on the water surface that they hadn't performed together before.

Well, I hope these captured beings are finding some captivity activities and interactions that compensate a little for being stuck in tiny enclosures compared to the vast open ocean.

Dolphins are still kind of creepy and rapists though.

We don't know that ALL of them are rapists. What if it's just a few spoiling the reputations of the rest? As for the creep factor... I wish people would stop lying on piers with their legs spread and encouraging dolphins to rise out of the water and hump them. Is it just me or is it still beastiality when you have all your clothes on, and it's just a quick frot? I get quite an erk factor out of that. Is it bad because my stomach doesn't like it? Is it alright for humans and dolphins to have consensual foreplay when both species can communicate when they're saying "yes" to each other?

If it's a captive dolphin you need to consent from the owner.

You can't till fields with a herring, they're only good for chopping down trees. They'll need a lobster to pull the plow.

The Toriko breed could probably till all the fields in under 30 minutes.

O
I'm not sure if I'm picturing it correctly. Is the dolphin-luring person on the dock with legs spread, lying on their back or on their front?

Funny videos returned when searching for "dolphin hugs": 0

I call shenanigans.

Well, if you're into that I'm sure someone makes dolphin ***** shaped sex toys.

I think I'm getting old. I'd prefer people to keep their consensual beastiality to private, indoor venues.

You rinse your human filth off onto a poor unsuspecting dolphin?

THAT filth is the least of Sir Splash-a-lot's concerns.

I actually almost bumped the manta ray thread to post this, since it involves photographers taking pictures of manta rays in Hawaii. Then I realized that this was actually the thread I wanted to post in, pretty weird.

Regardless, I know at least it's Ari's cup of tea.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CCXx2bNk6UA&feature=player_embedded

Photographers are approached by a dolphin in distress, and upon further inspection find a hook and fishing line entwined on one of its pectoral fins. Video of the dolphin encounter and subsequent "rescue".