Ethics and Cetacean Welfare

This week the Convention on Biodiversity (CBD) will set aside an entire day, Saturday 23rd October, during the 10th Meeting of the Parties in Nagoya, to celebrate and commiserate the Oceans.

This ‘Oceans Day’ is being held to ‘stress the urgent need to protect the world’s marine biodiversity and highlight the important role it plays in supporting many of the essential life supporting functions of the Earth’.
As the rainforests are the Earth’s lungs, so the oceans are its lifeblood.

There is little doubt that the oceans and seas are under ever increasing threat from human activities. Far from decreasing, some of these threats are on the increase. We are expanding aquaculture, scouring the seabed for the last vestiges of gas and oil and building new forms of alternative energy as we attempt to ameliorate the damage to the climate from our terrestrial activities.

The latest Attenborough/BBC documentary ‘The Death of the Oceans?’ leaves the viewer will little doubt that we need take radical action to preserve the ocean environment and it unique ecosystems.
The oceans; out there; blue, vast and capable of taking anything we through at them, right?

Wrong. This attitude belongs back in the early 1900s, when the oceans were thought to be an all-consuming abyss, but today we know a great deal more. The awe inspiring complexity and diversity of life in the oceans and the critical role that the oceans play as part of the biosphere should be sufficiently compelling for us to make the radical changes which we all know we need to make.

But, this knowledge alone does not seem to be quite enough to motivate us to do what we know we should. Perhaps we need a ‘vehicle’ to get us on the road to rehabilitation
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A presentation by Dee Eggers, Associate Professor of Environmental Studies at UNC Asheville, North Carolina, may perhaps provide a key. Eggers links the plight of a specific group of individuals – dolphins – with the plight of Earth’s ecosystems.

Eggers argues, as others have before her, that dolphins may qualify as persons and thus deserve to have their ‘moral standing’ recognised. This has implications for how we ‘manage’ these animals. Rather than species and populations, each would be considered as an individual.

It may sound simple, but this would be such a fundamental shift in the way that we do business when it comes to conservation and the ‘management of marine resources’, that the consequences could reverberate for centuries – a point in history where humankind moved from a human-centric attitude, towards a person-centric outlook.

But there is a growing momentum in this direction. Earlier in the year the question was posed ‘Will this be the decade when dolphins are recognised as non-human persons?’. A short time later a very significant step on the road to having cetaceans recognised as non-human persons was enshrined in the Declaration of Rights for Cetaceans; Whales and Dolphins (see also ‘Cetacean Rights, human wrongs and moral progress’).

As with any new, radical endeavor, there will be several stages to our acceptance. Firstly, we need to analyze the data and be convinced of the arguments, we then need to build credibility and have the courage to speak out in support of a call for change. Finally, and this will be the hardest part, we need to take action to enact the shift; more than just a shift in thinking, but a shift in reality.

Many argue that we now have ample evidence. Cetacean specialists such as Lori Marino - who’s detailed investigations into the anatomy of the dolphin brain lead her to argue that cetaceans may be one of smartest animals on the planet - to philosophers, such as Thomas I White, came together at a meeting in Helsinki earlier this year, recommending that we take this issue of dolphin and whale personhood seriously.

This movement is now developing its voice, selecting it battles and rallying its troops. Eggers’s presentation highlights the wider value and importance of these arguments: recognizing the personhood of cetaceans (whales, dolphins and porpoises) will have a fundamental positive influence on all living beings in the oceans and seas, and, by proxy, upon all biota, as our attitudes toward and respect for nature evolves.

Eggers notes that in taking the action required to reverse climate change ‘The fact that it is not optional makes the fact that it is hard irrelevant’. Viewed from a cetacean’s perspective the same may be true for the personhood debate. This will undoubtedly be a difficult, and at times uncomfortable, journey for we humans to make, but is it really an option to continue to ignore the fact that there are others on this planet besides ourselves deserving of moral standing?

Oceans Day will be held in Nagoya, Japan. What better place to begin ‘protecting the world’s marine biodiversity and highlight the important role it plays in supporting many of the essential life supporting functions of the Earth’; particularly as it pertains to cetaceans.

Philippa Brakes, October 2010