Cute Dolphins Can Also Be Wanton Killers

Dolphins, long considered the world's most intelligent, sensitive and sociable creatures, have a secret: they can also be wanton killers:

The first was initially believed to show a dolphin fishing for salmon - until closer examination revealed a relentless attack on a porpoise, its body spinning round with such force that its back was broken and its soft tissue shattered.

Marine experts now believe that these displays of attacks on non-rival, non-predatory, peace-loving porpoises and, more shockingly, of dolphin infanticide, may have always taken place.

It is only now, with dolphins' more human-friendly behaviour taking them closer to tourist boats and beaches, that the violence is being witnessed first hand. Until the shocking realisation, dolphin-watchers in America had believed they were watching the mammals at play with their young.

Link - via The Wide World of Timbo


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Hmmmm... I have to wonder about this. Recently the New York Times Sunday Magazine had a piece on how elephants are going insane. There was even an incident where a group of young elephants raped and murdered a rhinoceros. People studying this have concluded that the elephants are becoming psychotic as a result of drastic loss of social structure; it takes like 30 elephants to properly raise an elephant child.

So I wonder if this really has "always" happened among dolphins, or if it's also a recent development in reaction to their dwindling numbers.
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Just think of them as Dogs of the ocean. May be they can be domesticated if they're trained, but left in the wild, they'll go do their thang.
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