dolphins (Page 2)

Swimming with the dolphins has become a popular new therapy, but conservationists say it’s not doing dolphins any good and psychologists say that, despite earlier reports, it doesn’t do people any good, either.

The Whale and Dolphin Conservation Society is today calling for a total ban on Dolphin Assisted Therapy (DAT), stating that the therapy provided is ineffective and potentially harmful to both people and animals. DAT is a controversial therapy that involves close interaction with dolphins, usually through swimming with these animals in captivity or in their natural environment, and is promoted as a treatment or respite from illness and disability. It’s often used to treat depression and autism.
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Sometimes dolphins seem almost human and their DNA IS close to ours. That might be why the world’s tallest man (who is Chinese) recently saved two of them.

CNN reports that “the long arms of the world’s tallest man reached in and saved two dolphins by pulling out plastic from their stomachs.” The dolphins got sick after eating plastic from the edge of their pool at an aquarium in China. According to CNN, “Veterinarians then decided to ask for help from Bao Xishun, a 7-feet-9 herdsman from Inner Mongolia with 41.7-inch arms?[who] was confirmed last year by the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s tallest living man.”

Art credit: gimp-savvy.com
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There are parrots with large and complex vocabularies, apesthat can sign, and a pod of dolphins that recently saved agroup of human swimmers from a shark attack.

Now, it seems that prairie dogs don’t just yap a fewsignals, they have a complex language that evolves withtime, has dialects, and contains hundreds of words.

According to Northern Arizona University biology professorCon Slobodchikoff, prairie dogs have different words fordifferent specific people who come around their towns,different words for different types of bird flying overhead,and can come up with new words for things they’ve never seenbefore.
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We’ve learned that dolphin DNA is closer to humans than cows, horses or pigs, despite the fact that they live in the water. Now it’s been discovered that record numbers of these friendly relatives, along with sea lions, are being killed by a deadly toxin from sea algae that grows in the waters along California’s southern coast.

The poison is domoic acid, a nerve toxin made by a species of microscopic algae. Scientists think there’s so much more of this algae around because it’s feeding on nutrients from agricultural runoff or sewage. Changing weather patterns, causing warmer ocean waters, could also cause the algae to thrive.
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