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Paradox_Dolphin t1_j7wxdoy wrote

Reply to comment by CheatsySnoops in Killer whale moms are still supporting their adult sons — and it's costing them by RestSnorlax

It really is. Dolphins and whales are highly intelligent animals, and it's believed they have quite advanced speach. Makes me wonder if they talk about how the oceans aren't providing like they used to. Obviously, they'd have no concept of the fact that a hairless land ape was causing all of this destruction.

But I always wonder why dolphins help and protect humans. There's even records of dolphins helping humans from all the way back in ancient Greece.

And when we eventually translate dolphin language, will we admit that we're the ones causing their food supply problems?

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TricksterPriestJace t1_j7wzson wrote

We tried to share a language. The best translation we have of a dolphin phrase is "more handjobs please."

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djbuttplay t1_j7x0rsy wrote

They didn't mention the part where when they ended the experiment and the dolphin stopped getting jerked off he drowned himself at the bottom of his tank.

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80taylor t1_j7y8wm8 wrote

Is this true?

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washington_jefferson t1_j7yak9u wrote

Unfortunately. Here is a good Radiolab podcast: https://radiolab.org/episodes/home-where-your-dolphin

I asked ChatGPT and it said:

> You might be referring to the story of Margaret Howe Lovatt and the experiments she conducted with a bottlenose dolphin named Peter in the 1960s.

> Margaret Howe Lovatt was a researcher who worked with Peter, a captive bottlenose dolphin, as part of a NASA-funded project to explore the possibility of communication between humans and dolphins. The experiments took place on a small island in the Virgin Islands, where Lovatt lived and worked with Peter for several months.

> During the experiments, Peter became sexually aggressive towards Margaret Howe Lovatt, and she claims to have engaged in sexual contact with the dolphin as a way to appease him and maintain a calm and productive living environment for both of them. However, this behavior is considered highly controversial and unethical by the scientific community, and Lovatt has faced criticism for her actions.

> In the end, the experiments were unsuccessful and the project was eventually abandoned. Peter was eventually transferred to another facility, where he died several years later. The story of Margaret Howe Lovatt and Peter the dolphin continues to be a topic of interest and debate in the scientific community, and serves as a cautionary tale about the dangers of crossing ethical boundaries in animal research.

So, basically an OG nottheonion story.

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Kazahaki t1_j80cs8y wrote

Looking forward to seeing/hearing people say "I asked ChatGPT and it said:" a lot more in the future lol

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washington_jefferson t1_j80y637 wrote

Yeah, it might get banned in some subs. One sub I frequent the most involves a lot of international law and domestic policies. ChatGPT makes it wayyyyy easier to help people. Before you had to use bullet points from referral references from Google searches, and now you can just tell ChatGPT to give its answers in bullet point form. The thing is- you have to ask it specific questions and tweak things, and you kind of already have to know the answer that you are asking about. It just saves you time explaining and citing things. If you need actual facts with more certainty you should use google, or ask chatgpt where it's getting it's sources.

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Wagsii t1_j7wyu3h wrote

The great Human/Dolphin War of 2300 creeps closer.

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diagnosedwolf t1_j7z3no7 wrote

> Obviously, they have no concept of the fact that a hairless land ape was causing all of this destruction

I wouldn’t be so sure of this. Whales are known to not only understand the impact humans have on their lives, they have changed intergeneral behaviour because of it.

There is a species of whale that used to sing loudly in the Arctic. It was heavily hunted in the 1800s, and thought to be extinct for a while in the 1900s because it wasn’t seen or heard for decades. Only when recording devices were left behind did the whales get “rediscovered”.

It turned out that the whales had straight-up learnt that humans were hunting them in boats, so they went quiet and hid when they perceived human presence. They taught their children how to do this, and every generation since.

Studies with other species of whales showed that they can perceive the difference between a research boat and a whaling ship.

TLDR: whales understand an awful lot

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uzenik t1_j7za0ef wrote

So like african elephants that recognoze language that is used by tribes that hunt them, and those that don't.

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Paradox_Dolphin t1_j80voy9 wrote

Wow, animal intelligence never stops amazing me.

It is so sad to me that these animals are still hunted. I have this fantasy of working on a whaling ship, and just sabotaging it the entire time. Like, pour olive oil on the deck so people slip. Light nets on fire in the middle of the night. Just make it hell.

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laurel_laureate t1_j7x2fk0 wrote

It's believed? By who? Source on this? I'm genuinely curious.

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Paradox_Dolphin t1_j7x9j1t wrote

Cetacean Intelligence (there's a section for communication).

It's actually really cool too; Dolphins all have something that researchers call a "signature whistle," which seems very similar to the concept of humans each having a name. And the crazier thing is, for male dolphins, a part of their signature whistle will be taken from their mother's signature whistle, while female dolphins have completely original signature whistles. So this shows not only language, but also suggests culture.

Another awesome example; there are two dolphin species, one generally lives further north while the other lives further south, but they both reproduce around Hawaii. When they meet up around Hawaii, they hunt with each other. The two species generally have vocalizations and hearing abilities that are in a different frequency range, but their frequency ranges have some overlap. So when they hunt together, they switch to making sounds that are in a frequency range that they can both hear/vocalize in. So essentially, they're using a bridge language that neither typically speaks when they're separate.

This next study, I've sadly not heard any updates on, but this company is trying to use ML to translate dolphin language. (they were supposed to have finished the study in 2021, but I never heard more about it. Hoping COVID didn't wreck it.)

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