We had no conception that animals were sapient until the 20th century. None at all. In the Enlightenment, animals were considered to be organic automata, for example. Before that, they were just beasts put here by god for our use. Aboriginal cultures had more respect for animals, but it was usually wrapped up in animistic religion rather than some sort of acknowledgement that the whale they were hunting and giving thanks to for its sacrifice would really rather not have died at all.I will be honest. This question crossed my mind. The thought that orcas could themselves be sapient,* and that gray whales are sapient, and yet orcas might be unaware that grey whales are sapient.
I rejected the idea out of hand. I did so mostly because I can't easily imagine failing to notice that other creatures are intelligent, over a period of thousands of years, when one can listen and observe them if not actually understand them as such. Perhaps I was not imaginative enough.
Would you mind expanding on why you think I was wrong to reject this idea?
*(I should be saying 'sapient' consistently, I think)
Even if a pod or orca had figured out that whales are sapient, they cannot write, their high pitched vocalizations dont travel that far, and they dont share a language with other pods. So it is unlikely that the information would go very far. We still have humans today who have no conception that Chimps are people who should not be killed for bushmeat--and we CAN teach chimps language. You dont see us wiping out tribal groups in Uganda over it, because the very notion is an outside context problem for them.
To the first question, we are talking on the order of centuries. I wont commit ethnic cleansing at all. If learning to speak orca is found to be impossible or if it is more than a century out, THEN I will would consider methods like imprisonment inside bays using netting or something.Out of curiosity, would there be any span of time you would deem "too long" to wait?
What if, hypothetically, grey whales turn out to be about as smart as humans, but orcas turn out to be about as smart as gorillas? What should we do then?
At that point [your second question], we might have to take more extreme measures like pod imprisonment, and do it pretty quickly. Maybe find a way to wean them off whale.
What I wont do is descend on another culture with fire and iron over a moral quandary they dont have the context to understand.
You have to keep in mind, we live in a culture that historically has set itself up as being apart from nature and superior to it.Hm. Perhaps my over-familiarity with cultures that habitually cull dangerous predators led me to over-generalize.
That is not a universal sentiment, and a lot of these cultures see themselves as being a part of nature and thus subject to its admittedly harsh laws. This is not to say they wont avoid their deaths, but they dont go on revenge sprees. They will kill in self defense or to save someone, and may find they need to move or kill a 6 meter crocodile that has taken up residence in the spring they draw water from because the per capita daily risk is too high. But they dont try to exterminate crocs from the river they do their laundry in.
They dont have to be, but they *usually* are, at least when you are talking within large taxonomic groups (like mammals). Most snakes are probably not smarter than mice (though cobras may be an exception, monitor lizards are smarter than cats).I am reluctant to agree that predators are necessarily smarter than 'grazing' animals. Many herbivores are stupid, but gorillas and elephants are among the most intelligent of all animals, and both species are herbivorous. It strikes me as somewhat prejudicial to assume that predators have to be cleverer than the animals they hunt, especially when they have other natural advantages
What drives the evolution of intelligence is not being a predator,but the need to solve problems in an unpredictable environment or complex social groups. Alternatively, raw processing power for other processes can bootstrap high general intelligence as well.
Predators are more likely to need to do that, but it does not exclude herbivores either. See Elephants, which both have complex social dynamics and have to solve extremely complex problems just to survive in central Africa.
