ABSTRACT

In the last 20 years, marine scientists have discovered that advanced abilities traditionally thought to be unique to humans are present in a variety of the marine mammals. Research on dolphins, however, has provided the richest picture of sophisticated intellectual and emotional abilities in cetaceans. The scientific evidence in a variety of areas is striking: self-awareness, dolphins' abilities to understand artificial human language, their capacity to think abstractly and solve problems, cetacean emotional abilities and social intelligence. Humans are no longer the only animals on the planet with such sophisticated intellectual and emotional abilities (Cavalieri and Singer, 1993; Reiss and Marino, 2001; White, 2007).