Human-Dolphin Partnership Reserve

ahbe writes that the Myanmar government recently established a protected reserve for partnering between fisherman and wild dolphins. From the article: "The fascinating partnership involves fishermen summoning the dolphins to voluntarily herd schools of fish toward the boats and awaiting nets. With the aid of the river-dwelling dolphins, the fishermen can increase the size of their catches by threefold, and the dolphins appear to benefit by more easily preying on the cornered fish in both nets and on the muddy banks of the river."

Comments

Useful to humans = No extinction

[johnnywheeze]

Usefulness to humans seems to be a huge evolutionary advantage.

There's also a small population of Irawaddy Dolphins in the Mekong river where Laos Cambodia and Thailand meet. They also have a population less than 100.

Sadly, being useful to local fishermen is probably the only way these creatures will be allowed to continue to exist, as human beings aren't really keen on cutting pollution, not building dams, and protecting the fisheries. Currently they're on parole from a very small tourism industry around viewing them.

Hopefully more fishermen will pick this up and they will become as common as elephants, water buffalo and the other useful creatures around here.

OMG DOLPHINS

[uvajed_ekil]

There was this documentary about how these doplhins would use a similiar tactic just instead of a net they would use the bank of the shore line and the dolphins would temporarly bank themselves to catch fish. Scientists were baffled by how this was started. Now its obvios, doplhins are just plain smart!

I remember seeing that because the sight of dolphins leaping up onto the muddy banks to grab stranded fish was really something! A localized group of dolphins innovating to maximize the resources available to them seems to indicate that they are pretty smart. I won't say that their intelligence rivals that of humans, since we clearly grasp abstract concepts pretty well and can create some pretty neat tools. But they have never started any major wars, nor have they developed weapons that can destroy most all life on Earth (to my knowledge anyway - they might be more clever and sneaky than we give them credit for), as we have. They also speak Dolphin much better than most Americans ever well. (Caveat: most Americans never speak nothin other than English, and few speak that language well. And I ain't never never met no dolphins that talk da English better than me, yo!)

(Note: I use "we" to denote myself and fellow humans. Please take this into account if you are a dolphin or of some other species that I do not think very highly of.) But yeah, dolphins got nothin on me!!!

Re:Changing views on dolphin sentience?

[Anonymous Coward]

You do realise that this type of partnership doesn't demonstrate any special intelligence, don't you? Farmers have been using dogs to herd sheep for hundreds of years, but I don't see anybody suggesting that dogs are as intelligent as human beings.

Re:Changing views on dolphin sentience?

[Xtravar]

Well, if they started forming large groups and killing themselves, then they'd probably evolve our form of intelligence as well... afterall, the #1 natural enemy of human beings throughout the ages has been, well, human beings.