Dolphin mutilation

[downbeatplumb]

I'm speechless.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20414973

[Napoléon]

Under the law, harming a dolphin can lead to fines of up to $10,000 and a prison term of one year.

Should be far more IMO, it's disgusting.

[Jackalope]

I'm speechless.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-20414973

I have many fond memories of these beautifully playful, intelligent creatures riding the bow while boating to dive locations in the Pacific.

Whoever would intentionally and needlessly harm one is beneath my contempt.

[Anomalocaris]

Why? bottle nosed dolphins are not endangered, and one does not get go to prison for killing other unendangered animals, say, tuna.

To be beneath contempt is not a crime. Laws should be uniform, minmal consistent with genuine social need, and devoid of examption catering to mere squeamishness.

Even in China, you have to kill a designated highly endangered animal before they hual you before a court. Of course there if you are hauled before a court for killing, say a panda bear, you would be executed by a assault rifle shot to the back of the head within 2 hours, however you plead and whatever your defence.

[downbeatplumb]

Why? bottle nosed dolphins are not endangered, and one does not get go to prison for killing other unendangered animals, say, tuna.

This is not fishing, but animal torture for the sake of torture.
Dolphins are also intelligent creatures, which at least in my mind makes it worse.

I would deplore the brutal killing of most animals for no reason.

Slaughtering a cow humanely for burgers is different from hacking open a cow in the middle of a field just to see it die.

[Jackalope]

Why? bottle nosed dolphins are not endangered, and one does not get go to prison for killing other unendangered animals, say, tuna.

To be beneath contempt is not a crime. Laws should be uniform, minmal consistent with genuine social need, and devoid of examption catering to mere squeamishness.

Note that I said "intentionally and needlessly". Regardless of what the law has to say on the subject, these dolphins were not killed for food. One can only speculate as to why. "Kicks" comes to mind.

Note that you can can be fined and/or go to jail for wasting recreationally-harvested game and non-game species (as well as land species). The fines for such can be substantial. I fail to see the difference between that, and this, other than that there is no lawful harvest of dolphins.

[Anomalocaris]

Why? bottle nosed dolphins are not endangered, and one does not get go to prison for killing other unendangered animals, say, tuna.

This is not fishing, but animal torture for the sake of torture.
Dolphins are also intelligent creatures, which at least in my mind makes it worse.

I would deplore the brutal killing of most animals for no reason.

Slaughtering a cow humanely for burgers is different from hacking open a cow in the middle of a field just to see it die.

Would you be this outraged if a dead tuna washes up with the same signs of abuse?

Just because one deplore something in particular doesn't mean it is good practice to increase the complexity, waterdown the consistency, and magnify the difficulty in enforcing of the legal code just to cater to one's own special squamishness.

It is said a chief cause of the gradual corruption of society and state is the ever increasing complexity of its laws resulting of ever multiply special cases catering to special interests. Corruptissima Repubblica plurimae leges

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Note that I said "intentionally and needlessly". Regardless of what the law has to say on the subject, these dolphins were not killed for food. One can only speculate as to why. "Kicks" comes to mind..

"Sports" fishing seems hardly to have any purpose other than kicks. If food is the purpose the fisherman can go to a sea food restaurant and eat it for much less.

The point is a law should not be so constructed as to, on the one hand, claim to forbid something, and on the otherhand, allow itself to be so transparently and effortlessly bypassed.

[Jackalope]

Would you be this outraged if a dead tuna washes up with the same signs of abuse?

Not to the same degree, much as I would be outraged over the cruel and needless killing of a farm animal over the squashing of an insect (the latter, not at all).

I''l freely admit that it's a result of cetaceans being more "like us" than fish. That the research suggests that cetaceans are highly intelligent and self-aware is, in my opinion, a good reason to afford them more protection under the law than we do to species that we harvest for food or consider pests.

[Anomalocaris]

Would you be this outraged if a dead tuna washes up with the same signs of abuse?

Not to the same degree, much as I would be outraged over the cruel and needless killing of a farm animal over the squashing of an insect (the latter, not at all).

I''l freely admit that it's a result of cetaceans being more "like us" than fish. That the research suggests that cetaceans are highly intelligent and self-aware is, in my opinion, a good reason to afford them more protection under the law than we do to species that we harvest for food or consider pests.

Then I think the law would then need some consistent, legal, and measurable definition of what is the boundary for being sufficiently "like us", and apply it uniformly to all cases involving animals, and not make ad hoc, largely sqeamnishness based, examptions.

[Jackalope]

Then I think the law would then need some consistent, legal, and measurable definition of what is the boundary for being sufficiently "like us", and not make ad hoc, largely sqeamnishness based, examptions.

Sounds like a conversation you ought to be having with your legislator, Chuck.