Another year, another whale war. Victory for Sea shepherd

[Thanas]

So in a life or death struggle where one side is predator and the other is prey, we... don't need to do anything? I'm having trouble reconciling myself to this position. I would dearly like to know how you find it such a comfortable fit.

We don't do anything because we can not, not because we need not.

But I find it very strange that we can decide a whale species is intelligent and have it make no practical difference to our behavior except "ban any attempt to hunt them." No advocacy for making communicating with them a top priority (except maybe from Alyrium). No advocacy for protecting them from aggression at the hands of other species, sentient or nonsentient.

I'd expect ethical philosophy to be more interconnected from that. Put in over-simple form, "whales are sentient" should have more consequences than that.

You are ridiculous. You are not prepared to argue for a ban but blame me for not immediately jumping to the "we should immediately open communications with them" point of view. I'd say you better argue for a ban first before you start lecturing me about morals. I'd love to talk to whales. But I cannot. So I trust the experts to figure out a way. Until we can do so we should not kill them. That simple enough for you to understand?

So we default to 'sapient until proven otherwise?'

I am getting very tired very quickly of your attempt to strawman the positions into something that is never said in the text. No, we do not default to sapient until proven otherwise. We default to "sapient until proven otherwise if we have clear indicators of sapience. Such as recognizing oneself in the mirror, talking to another, giving each other names, intergenerational memory etc". I fail to realize why I have to spell everything out for you.

How many kinds of intelligence might there be on this planet for us to decisively eliminate by careful research? Is it simply not worth bothering except in the case of whales?

Wow, it is almost as if you never bothered to even do a cursory google check on attempts to communicate with animals, attempts to ascertain the intelligence of species. Fact is we do have some clear indicators in whales. This thread is about whales. Ergo people talk about whales only. As for other species, I have made my position very clear in this thread.

We don't accept "this is how it is in the state of nature" as an argument to stop us saving people's lives in other cases. Why now? Because the orcas depend on eating sapient whales? Why does their right to live trump that of their prey?

I fail to realize what this has to do with whaling.

Is this an argument aka "Orcas bad, so kill them?" What would you have us do? We cannot communicate with them yet. We cannot provide them with alternative food sources yet. We cannot stop them killing other wales unless we kill them. Would you want us to condemn one species to extinction for our shortcomings?

Thanas, I beg your pardon, but do we not define intelligence by the standard of being able to communicate with other intelligent species? Or is sapience different from intelligence and thus has other criteria? (If so, which?)

Is a disabled person who cannot communicate with others at all less intelligent than a normal person by default? Is he not sapient? Being able to talk to other species has never been an outright requirement for intelligence, because we humans cannot talk to other species either. If you mean communication via other means, then you should know that Dolphins can already answer complex questions via mechanical devices.[/quote] [url=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i0FiM50Uhzc]Here is another talk by one of the worlds most foremost experts on Dolphins.

Why do whales meet the criteria of "form something of a culture" when other communicating pack animals like wolves do not? Because the way you phrase this, I read it as being that you mean to say that self-awareness and intelligence are implied by the ability to form a culture. But what is a culture, then?

If you had listened to the presentations I linked to you would not ask such questions. For example - humpback whales modulate their songs according to individual taste. Whales from the east sound completely unlikely than whales from the west. Yet somehow they meet. What happens then? After a lot of talking oftentimes the groups modulate their songs, incorporating elements from the individual other songs.

Whales play with Dolphins and vice versa, just for fun. One such example is that whales will lift Dolphins out of the water and give them a ride on their fronts picture. Dolphins also create their own objects of play, they vary their hunting methods, use tools, have a very long memory and teach their young their experiences. They are even able to interact with other species and their communities for over 160 years. For example, there is a famous fishing cooperative in Brazil formed between Dolphins and humans. This alliance formed in 1847 is still going strong today. Youtube video here, summary with more links [url)http://blogs.discovermagazine.com/notro ... SqcXFcYp-w]here[/url], pdf article here, RSBL article here.

They communicate with each other, they recognize themselves as individuals, they have different "languages" for lack of a better word etc. They are altruistic and emphasize with suffering other animals, as evidenced by them saving numerous humans in distress or protecting them from sharks at risk of their own lives. No other wild animal does this.

But really, just watch this presentation. Dr. Reiss is presenting the evidence far better than I ever could.

As to whether wolves meet the criteria, I do not know. I have not spent much time familiarizing myself with the evidence either way. I do not support hunting wolves either btw, but primarily because of ecological concerns.

[The Duchess of Zeon]

No tribe of spearmen in canoes could possibly exterminate a whale species.

Not in canoes, no. However, the loopholes created by the culture argument could be used - and abused - by poachers. Inuit tribes etc. still do it for subsistence (or at least so knows the IWC), I would assume the same relates to Makah people (plus it being a part of potlatch and thus a major element of their whole community too).

The unemployment rate on the Makah reservation is 51% and the only access is a treacherous 2-lane road running some 50 miles along the coast which is frequently closed in winter for a week at a time due to unending mudslides. They are too far from any populated place to make money off an "Indian Casino" and rely on a small fishing fleet, a very small amount of sustainable logging, a gravel quarry which produces enough for a few local contracts with the WSDOT, and limited summer tourism--limited because even in summer the area is usually shrouded in fog and rainy, as it is a temperate rainforest, so you can make a very good argument that they badly need their desired quota of 20 grey whales every 5 years with a maximum of 5 in one year.

[Simon_Jester]

The next big question is figuring out the intelligence question and seeing what the response would be.

I am in favor of a total ban on hunting any whale species IF the preponderance of evidence suggests the whale species is intelligence. I don't think I favor bans on the off chance that the species might be intelligent, simply because we're not yet that confident about the limits of what 'intelligence' means and if we apply the logic to all cetaceans indiscriminately, we really ought to be consistent by applying it to many other species around the globe that might be intelligent for some alienish definition of 'intelligent.'

Thus, for example, the best argument for not interfering in orca hunts is the possibility that the orcas are sentient and the whales they kill probably aren't...

I'm entirely happy to support a moratorium on whaling even if they were dumber than a sack of wet hammers, since I do agree that the intentional obliteration of even suicidally unintelligent animals is wrong for its own reasons not related to our ethical obligation to another creature.

Industrial whaling is a problem in this respect, traditional not so much.

I'd rather them hold a ritualized Whale Hunt, throw a tracking beacon onto the thing to watch the life they have decided to give back to their "kill," and come back for a nice dinner of stupid brainless salmon or whatever. But me making them do that is wrong, while letting a culture evolve to that point is exciting.

Thanks for the very engaging discussion.

The idea of such a ceremony is... pretty classy.

You are ridiculous. You are not prepared to argue for a ban but blame me for not immediately jumping to the "we should immediately open communications with them" point of view.

You did not understand. Make it a priority is not the same thing as do it immediately.

What confuses me is that the position of several people favoring an absolute ban seems limited to "ban whaling, including the kinds that have no ecological consequences, because I believe whales are sentient." I would think we'd have to do more than that, or try to. But such things run into "we can't do that" because it would be too hard to, say, protect gray whales from being hunted and killed by creatures we can't talk to.

And this very moment is just about the first time you've presented the 'too difficult' argument, as far as I can remember. It makes more sense than most of what I'd seen so far: saving the lives of those gray whales, at the cost of the lives of a certain number of orca pods, isn't cost-effective enough to matter.

That's a very prosaic argument, but it's certainly one that can be well-founded if you're willing to stick to it.

So we default to 'sapient until proven otherwise?'

I am getting very tired very quickly of your attempt to strawman the positions into something that is never said in the text. No, we do not default to sapient until proven otherwise. We default to "sapient until proven otherwise if we have clear indicators of sapience. Such as recognizing oneself in the mirror, talking to another, giving each other names, intergenerational memory etc". I fail to realize why I have to spell everything out for you.

Because sometimes I am not clear on where you draw the line.

Obviously no one's going to assume rocks are intelligent until proven otherwise. But what about wolves? We're pretty sure wolves don't have that kind of intelligence, they certainly don't seem to. Are we sure enough to decide we don't need a just-in-case ban?

On the strength of what we already know, I agree we should ban hunting of several cetacean species, including the ones that most of the evidence of intelligence presented on this site are from. I'm not sure we should have a general ban just in case, outside those species and perhaps a few others.

We don't accept "this is how it is in the state of nature" as an argument to stop us saving people's lives in other cases. Why now? Because the orcas depend on eating sapient whales? Why does their right to live trump that of their prey?

I fail to realize what this has to do with whaling.

Is this an argument aka "Orcas bad, so kill them?" What would you have us do? We cannot communicate with them yet. We cannot provide them with alternative food sources yet. We cannot stop them killing other wales unless we kill them. Would you want us to condemn one species to extinction for our shortcomings?

I am not sure. I think it's a limitation of recognizing the intelligence of prey in a predator-prey relationship. We certainly do a lot of killing of any species that preys on us, and probably would do the same even if it was intelligent. Are we willing to extend an intelligent prey species the same consideration?

This is a moral dilemma, one that I don't think has been well explored by moral philosophy to date because it never came up until we asked "what if both orcas and gray whales are intelligent?" a few decades ago.

[K. A. Pital]

Being able to talk to other species has never been an outright requirement for intelligence, because we humans cannot talk to other species either.

The comparison with an impaired person is not correct. Impairment removed, the person is able to meaningfully communicate (or in fact is able to communicate through other means) and demonstrate the level of abstract thinking and intelligent capacities that we consider satisfactory to admit a certain person is intelligent. I've been following the cetacean intelligence research articles and I must say that like Alyrium I'm not entirely convinced that this is really the case.

Is this an argument aka "Orcas bad, so kill them?" What would you have us do? We cannot communicate with them yet. We cannot provide them with alternative food sources yet. We cannot stop them killing other wales unless we kill them. Would you want us to condemn one species to extinction for our shortcomings?

I think even if we could, at their level of ... uh... consciousness, it would be rather hard to just tell them not to kill other species. So it is not communication that is the problem. Like in your example above, you can theoretically explain to a mentally deficient person with sadistic tendencies that torturing, say, caught animals is bad. However, the person is rather unlikely to stop.

With humans we lock them down in madhouses. With orcas... if we were to do the same, that would essentially mean nothing but total enslavement of their species. Essentially the question is: if killing whales is as horrible as killing humans (see tribal cannibalism), then it warrants a response of the same strength - cannibal culture must either be extinguished from the minds of its carriers or, if not possible, one will have to isolate or exterminate the hosts of such culture. Since this is a first-degree offense, the slaughter of an intelligent mind.

If you are willing to put a line between whales killing and devouring each other and humans killing and devouring each other, then you've already admitted that whales are not as valuable as humans.

[Thanas]

If you are willing to put a line between whales killing and devouring each other and humans killing and devouring each other, then you've already admitted that whales are not as valuable as humans.

Not really. I don't think one can argue one thing is more valuable than the other, as one is the survival of an entire species and the other is the normal state of things in nature.

[Simon_Jester]

But now you are conflating industrialized whaling (which could exterminate whole whale species) and the kind of small scale whaling that we talk about banning when we're talking about tribal cultures that do it by tradition (which couldn't possibly wipe out a whole whale species).

We can agree that killing whales 'wholesale' is wrong no matter who's doing it. Can we reach a similar agreement about killing them 'retail,' or do we need one ethical rule for killings by humans and one for killings by orcas?

[Thanas]

But now you are conflating industrialized whaling (which could exterminate whole whale species) and the kind of small scale whaling that we talk about banning when we're talking about tribal cultures that do it by tradition (which couldn't possibly wipe out a whole whale species).

We can agree that killing whales 'wholesale' is wrong no matter who's doing it. Can we reach a similar agreement about killing them 'retail,' or do we need one ethical rule for killings by humans and one for killings by orcas?

You are still confusing the element of need. Orcas need to eat whales to survive. Tribal cultures do not need it to survive.

[Aaron MkII]

Are you familiar with the Canadian Arctic, where the Inuit live? One whale every two years is a massive boon in a place where 4 litres of milk can be 16$ and everything comes by plane or boat.

[Thanas]

Are you familiar with the Canadian Arctic, where the Inuit live? One whale every two years is a massive boon in a place where 4 litres of milk can be 16$ and everything comes by plane or boat.

Yes, I am familiar with the arctic.

Will they starve without it? If so, then they should be allowed to hunt a few whales with efficient and quick-killing methods. If not, no whales for them.

[Aaron MkII]

Are you familiar with the Canadian Arctic, where the Inuit live? One whale every two years is a massive boon in a place where 4 litres of milk can be 16$ and everything comes by plane or boat.

Yes, I am familiar with the arctic.

Will they starve without it? If so, then they should be allowed to hunt a few whales with efficient and quick-killing methods. If not, no whales for them.

Why does it matter if they are starving or not? Is the bowhead intelligent?

If it's not and it's done quick and in a sustainable manner, then why is it any different then me shooting a deer?

[Aaron MkII]

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/north/sto ... rctic.html

Apologies for not posting the article, my tablet is fickle with that.

The gist of it is the government claims Eastern Bowhead populations are back up to the pre-whaling estimates.

[Thanas]

Why does it matter if they are starving or not? Is the bowhead intelligent?

Nobody knows for sure with bowheads right now, but signs point to possibly or probably, depending on how you want to interpret it. As the possibility is a good one, one should not be allowed to kill them until scientists have conducted conclusive tests on the matter.

The gist of it is the government claims Eastern Bowhead populations are back up to the pre-whaling estimates.

And I am sure the government is as confident of that claim as it is of the earlier ones made which turned out to be wrong.

[Aaron MkII]

Why does it matter if they are starving or not? Is the bowhead intelligent?

Nobody knows for sure with bowheads right now, but signs point to possibly or probably, depending on how you want to interpret it. As the possibility is a good one, one should not be allowed to kill them until scientists have conducted conclusive tests on the matter.

Fair enough.

And I am sure the government is as confident of that claim as it is of the earlier ones made which turned out to be wrong.

To be honest, I'm not sure I believe them.

[madd0ct0r]

just asking, are these whales more intelligent then pigs?

[Thanas]

just asking, are these whales more intelligent then pigs?

The problem is that one cannot do intelligence tests with whales right now. However dolphins are clearly more intelligent than pigs and whales seem to perform most of the same behavior dolphins do, except where their physiology makes such prohibitive.

[Alyrium Denryle]

If this ethical argument doesn't carry weight, then... I think Duchess has a point here, even if not an ironclad one. Either moral rules about a sapient creature's right to life and protection are universal, or they aren't. If elephants are sapient we can't allow them to starve any more than we would allow human beings to starve; if whales are sapient we shouldn't allow them to be killed any more than we'd allow human swimmers to be.

I hate to rain on your parade, but we do in fact allow elephants to starve. We also let 30k or so children to starve to death every day. However, this is not a thing we (for a definition of we that only includes civilized people, and you know who I exclude there because you know me well enough) More elaboration on that momentarily, but I would like to sort of combine it with a thing Thanas said that is on-point.

Whales have their own culture as evidenced by their songs and the differences between whale schools. They also give themselves names or at least means to individually identify themselves. They teach their children and have inter-generational memory and traditions handed down from one member to another. At this point we simply do not know yet to definitely say they are intelligent, but the possibility is there and all the evidence seems to point more towards the "yes" column.

That right there is the clinching point. If a thing is sapient, it has a right to preserve whatever culture it has, provided that doing so does not require harming another sapient being.

We have a certain minimum obligation, namely, to stop directly murdering other sapient beings. That is a thing we can do. First Nations people have options. They do not require whale as a food source. They can even preserve certain aspects of the whale hunt as an annual ritual. They can see a whale, go out in their canoes, they can chase the whale and have a competition to see how close they can get, or throw not-sharp sticks in ritual fashion. They can then proceed to have a collective feast on something not-whale. They can preserve a part of their culture that has meaning for them, without having to harm another sapient species. They are not obligate subsistence hunters anymore. They use plenty of modern tools like snow-mobiles. Hell, we can even subsidize the importation of food stuffs into those areas. Not that big a deal. We may not be able to legally compel them to give up whaling due to treaty, but once there is enough evidence to say for certain that whales of whatever species are sapient, we can probably convince them without having to use force.

Hell, if we make communicating with cetaceans a top priority, it might even be possible to enlist the aid of various whale species in traditional hunts. There are documented cases of this occurring with Orca. If Baleen Whales are sapient and we can talk to them, they may be able to point the Inuit and such like at additional food sources (such as mussels and such in relatively shallow water). The whale hunt then becomes a triumphant greeting rather than a slaughter. Given the aversion most human beings have to cannibalism, this is a thing that can easily be incorporated into their spiritual beliefs.

If whales are sapient, that is our minimal obligation. We stop eating them, right the fuck now. The consequences of doing this are not in the least bit ambiguous, unless one wishes to make the argument that head-hunting should be permitted because it is part of indigenous cultures.

We can agree that killing whales 'wholesale' is wrong no matter who's doing it. Can we reach a similar agreement about killing them 'retail,' or do we need one ethical rule for killings by humans and one for killings by orcas?

Have you been doing this thing called reading? I snap at you because I am accustomed to more reasoned argument from you.

Killing sapients is wrong. We can all agree on this. However, how we actually deal with this practically is a matter separate from the wrongness itself. There are things that are relatively uncomplicated that we can do right now. Other things are more complicated, and require more time.

The various indigenous tribes that still whale do so because they wish to preserve what is left of their native culture after white people all but destroyed it. That is cool.

However, other factors like the rights of whales who-for-the-sake-of-this-discussion we are assuming are sapient, are relevant. The right to live (or however we want to ethically frame it, it ends up with the same basic calculation most ways you look at it, so I will use the Rights shorthand) for a fully developed sapient being generally (there are exceptions, but generally) outweighs other perceived interests. Therefore, though the least coercive mean possible, all whaling must end if whales are sapient. I have already addressed alternatives to native whaling, I do not want to see anyone pulling this out of context while ignoring my statement respecting those alternatives.

It becomes more complicated when for one party to live, the other must die. In cases involving humans, there are options. If one group is trying to kill the other over a resource conflict, we can send in peacekeepers and work to resolve the fundamental conflict. No one need die there, unless one party or the other makes the knowing choice to force the issue.

With Orca however, the pods that eat whale rely on the whale as a primary food source. Without it, they starve. So unless we are going to commit the next best thing to genocide (again), we cannot simply deny them their food. We have to communicate with them. We have to offer them some sort of alternative that is ethical.

We must stop the killing and eating of other sapient entities. Full stop. That does not mean we have to do it the same way, or on the same time-scale, for every single instance of the killing of sapient entities, because the issues complicating it in each case are different. I fail to see how you have such a hard time grasping this unless you are simply not reading my damn posts.



I dont take that last bit lightly or flippantly. If whales are sapient, we have an alien species living under our damn noses. That should be a huge WOW moment for all of humanity. A thing of such profundity that it changes the way we interact with the rest of the world.

So in a life or death struggle where one side is predator and the other is prey, we... don't need to do anything? I'm having trouble reconciling myself to this position. I would dearly like to know how you find it such a comfortable fit.

It is not a comfortable fit. It is a recognition that there is very little that can actually be done, that will not have other consequences that are potentially worse.

If: We ban or otherwise end indigenous whaling because whales are sapient
Then: the indigenous people who whale will survive, and if we do it right, adapt their culture to not require the death of whales while preserving as much of their cultural traditions as possible. See possible scenarios above.

If: We directly intervene in Orca hunting of whales, before communication and possible alternative food options are present
Then: A lot of Orca starve to death, and we will have committed genocide.

Do you not see the issue there?

I am in favor of a total ban on hunting any whale species IF the preponderance of evidence suggests the whale species is intelligence. I don't think I favor bans on the off chance that the species might be intelligent, simply because we're not yet that confident about the limits of what 'intelligence' means and if we apply the logic to all cetaceans indiscriminately, we really ought to be consistent by applying it to many other species around the globe that might be intelligent for some alienish definition of 'intelligent.'

It is a matter of what your prior knowledge is. We know that sapience is present or at least VERY likely present among several species of dolphin. Do we say "OK, go ahead and kill" with regard to the dolphin species we have yet to study in depth? Or do you make the call that it is simply too risky to kill and eat all of them until such time as we know for sure?

You should not shoot a gun in the air because when the bullets fall, they may or may not kill someone. The risk is often very low, but it is still there and the moral weight placed on the risk of killing someone is pretty high.

With some species of well studied baleen whales, as well as Sperm Whales, we have pretty good indications that they are sapient. Long distance communication with dialects in humpbacks, altruism toward unrelated individuals that includes self sacrifice in sperm whales, complex social behavior in several species. Oh, and the bayesian prior of a brain the size of a couch.

Is it enough to know for sure? No. Is it enough that the risk is high enough to make one... uncomfortable? Yeah. And given how widely distributed across taxa those are, it may be a good idea to use the precautionary principle like you would with regard to shooting a gun in the air.

Are there other species this applies to? Fuck yes. I dont eat octopus anymore. Why? A friend of mine used to work with Octopi in an aquarium. The tanks got cleaned with a toothbrush, and one of them took a toothbrush and when the tank got a little messy with algae or water quality dropped, would signal my friend to clean shit up in there by waving the toothbrush above the water line. That is not a sure indicator because it could just be an association between the toothbrush and having a more comfortable place to live, but it could also indicate second order theory of mind. So I dont fucking eat them. I lecture people who do eat them. So yeah, there are other species we should not fucking be eating. I dont have a problem saying it.

The consequence of Type II error in cases like this, is murder. Therefore, we should bias against Type II error. This is not a hard concept.

If you are willing to put a line between whales killing and devouring each other and humans killing and devouring each other, then you've already admitted that whales are not as valuable as humans.

I am not sure you read me properly. But this is... an interesting and absolutely critical bit of conversation we need to have. So, I am going to highlight it by putting it in bold.

Cetacean intelligence is probably very different from ours. Sapient, in the case of Dolphins and a few other toothed whales, as far as we can tell, but different. This makes sense when you think about it, their intelligence evolved under completely different environmental conditions. This has some very important implications. Some parts of their intellect we can predict, some we have no context that would permit us to predict.


Things we can predict

Theory of Mind: Sapience is first order theory of mind. For species without a consciousness, they perceive nothing. This is difficult to describe, but like the Terminator, their brain registers damage, but they dont actually experience pain. When an organism has a consciousness but no first order theory of mind, they actually experience the world, but are not aware of themselves as separate entities. They are aware of the world, but not themselves. When an organism has first order theory of mind, or Sapience, they are aware of their own consciousness, their own existence. 2nd Order theory of mind is what we have. To be aware of our consciousness, and the consciousnesses of others. Third Order and higher are degrees of recursion of the Form "I am aware, that they are aware, that I am aware" that goes to the Nth order. The ability to be aware that someone else is aware that either you or a third individual is aware (for third order) and to use this information to make decisions. We have this capacity to IIRC the 4th order or higher. Autistic people for example have deficiencies in this respect, to varying degrees.


Moral Behavior: A great many social species have some sort of primitive moral behavior. In some, it is just a Fixed Action Pattern to some some sort of stimulus. For example, when certain chemical signals are released, ants will come to the aid of distressed relatives. It looks like Empathy, but it is not.

In other species, it is more interesting. You start seeing things like empathy, basic concepts of fairness, things like that. The important distinction is that these things are generalized across taxa. An ant will only respond to distress signals from a related ant. A dolphin will respond to yours (if it is not the willful cause. Dolphins can be assholes). Animals with a concept of fairness will respond to Ultimatum experiments (wherin one animal is able to offer some portion of a fixed pool of treats to another individual. If the other one accepts the offer, they get their respective shares, if the other rejects, neither gets anything) by rejecting offers that are really low. If they are not rewarded for performing a task, while another individual is, they will decline to participate further.

These behaviors appear to have evolved multiple times, but what the really basic forms require in terms of orders of awareness of consciousness is somewhat unclear, as both dogs and rats display them but fail mirror tests. One of those things where all species with 2nd Order Theory of Mind will display them, but not all species that do it have 2nd Order Theory of Mind (though experiments have shown for example that Chimps have 2nd Order Theory of Mind, with absolute certainty. The extent to which they display these behaviors is correspondingly more complex than the basic versions. Communication experiments with bottlenose dolphins indicate that they do as well)

Beyond that basic scaffold though, the way such an organism interacts with and views others is a thing that goes in the other section for things we have no way of predicting.

Language: Any being with 2nd Order theory of mind will have something like language. However, it may not correspond with ours. It may use sound, but not be verbal. It may use some sensory mode other than hearing. Elephants for example use ultra low frequency, high-wavelength sound to communicate long range, but they use other forms of sound at close range. Dolphins can "see" images composed of high frequency short wavelength sound. If they have a language, it may be comprised of a combination of what we might consider words (like their name calls) and symbolic images formed from sound that right now we have no way to detect or decode.

Our current technology and linguistic models have no way whatsoever of dealing with this.

Things We Cant Predict

Death: How we deal with death is a thing that is particular to us. Another organism may deal with death in a way that is completely different to us. If an organism obviously grieves, it is a really clear indicator that they are sapient. If they dont, it is not an indicator of the reverse. If for no other reason than they may deal with death and grieve in a way that we cannot at this time detect as such.

Trauma: We dont know what will cause trauma or offense to another organism. I used the example of Bonobos earlier. They initiate their young into group sexual activity (non-penetrative) very shortly after birth. As in, they are being masturbated by adults and older offspring within an hour post birth, and this continues throughout the rest of their lives. If this happened to a human, the emotional trauma this causes would be... extreme. However, this is normal for a Bonobo. What we see as forced copulation in dolphins may not be rape. It might just be dolphin kink for all we know.

Ways of thinking: The way we structure our thoughts and experience the world is a thing that evolved for us in our historical environment for a being with our particular set of capabilities. Any other organism we might "meet" out in our world or some other is likely to structure their thoughts in a way that is VERY different from ours.

We do not for example, have any freaking clue how a being with 1st Order Theory of Mind will react on a cognitive level to other beings with 1st Order Theory of Mind. Can it somehow deal with it? With the conscious knowledge that this other thing thinks like it does, but with no way of simulating that other thing's brain state like we use our Mirror Neurons to do, and thus predict how it might behave? Will it even be capable of grasping the concept? This is an Outside Context Problem for us. We have no idea.

And this is just the list of stuff I can think of off the top of my head. I am probably missing things.

To be honest, I'm not sure I believe them.

In my experience, one should never trust the figures coming out of a government agency that has some other conflicting interest on the subject.

They expect me to believe that an animal with:
A generation time of something on the order of a decade
Reproducing every 3-6 years, giving birth to one calf
Calves making up 5% or less of the population

Went from a 1980 population around 4000 to 14 thousand?

No.

If they reproduce the year after birth, with a 5% gross reproductive rate they could be at 20k right now. They do no such thing. Not even fucking close.

[Aaron MkII]

Actually I think the article is saying the numbers are higher because previous estimates were wrong. I have no idea how that works...it smells though. I notice there hasn't been any quota increase since the article was published, nor have I heard that an increase was even requested.

[Alyrium Denryle]

Actually I think the article is saying the numbers are higher because previous estimates were wrong. I have no idea how that works...it smells though. I notice there hasn't been any quota increase since the article was published, nor have I heard that an increase was even requested.

No, that I got. I just looked back at historical population figures for the population in question. A little less than 4k in 1978.