The dark side of dolphins —they kidnap, rape and murder other dolphins and humans.
Dozens of cases of dolphins attacking humans are reported each year.
In the popular perception dolphins are intelligent and cheerful animals that frolic amiably in the waves. In Ancient Greece killing a dolphin was a death sentence and Australian Aborigines thought that these aquatic mammals were visitors from Sirius. Modern science marvels at the high intelligence of dolphins and their complex social system.
“We should treat dolphins as persons and give them full rights. Intentional killing of such persons should be punished as killing of humans” — says Prof. Thomas White, ethicist from Loyola Marymount University in California, who postulates introduction of the Cetacean Charter.
Meanwhile, the similarity of the dolphin world to the human world, which fascinates scientists, also has a dark side.
Dolphin gangs
In the depths of the sea, dolphins lead a life that less is known about. Dolphin gangs, specializing in kidnapping and enslaving females, massacring their own young and other cetacean species, live in waters from Western Australia through the Caribbean, the Atlantic coasts of Scotland and the United States to California.
