There are not many places more beautiful than Scotland. There are a lot places drier and warmer though!
Poetry – One Gaff and a Slow Slice – a poem about the murder of the highly intelligent porpoises and dolphins.
This was a number of my Anthropocene Apocalypse poems.
The dolphins and porpoises have bigger brains than us. They are certainly intelligent. But they are gentle creatures with no need to build shelters or machines, let alone weapons.
I stood on the hills above Wineglass Bay in Tasmania with my wife Liz and my friends Dylan and Julia. It is one of the most beautiful sights with its emerald green water and golden sands. I thought it was called Wineglass Bay solely because of its shape as a wine glass. It wasn’t. In the older days they would herd thousands of dolphins into the shallow water. The hunters would stand in the water gaffing them with huge serrated hooks and sawing through their necks to sever the spinal cord with great serrated knives. They would continue in an orgy of murder until all the trapped terrorised animals were slaughtered and the water they stood in was turned from emerald green to crimson. From the hills the water of the bay was turned red as if it was a half-full glass of Beaujolai.
Can you imagine that much blood?
Can you imagine the pain? To be speared with a huge gaff while some brute slowly cuts through your body with a great knife?
You’d think that was bad enough. But those were uncivilised days. People were brutalised. Except it is still going on. In the Faroe Islands they are still doing this.
They are as bad as the sadists of ISIS!
One Gaff and a Slow Slice
One gaff
And a slow serrated slice,
Sawing and hacking to the cord.
Then relief.
Agony prolonged,
Intense,
and grief.
Gentle and trusting
Easily herded
Into the shallows
Where the blood
Is curded.
Gleefully stabbed.
The shock resounds.
Excited hunter
With joy rebounds.
No concept of the pain.
Sad meat upon the shore
Crimson seeps between
Each grain
But the fever
Still screams
For more.
Butchered in the sunset
Ruddy water
Reflects
The crime.
Hunter stands
In depths
Of gory grime
As one
Of the great tragedies
Of our time.
Opher 4.7.2015
Wonder and Awe – Man and Intelligence.
The saddest aspect of being a human being is that there is only one species of us. It has led us to believe we are something special, something that is above all other life. Many people struggle to think of us as animals.
We are animals. We are intelligent animals. We have fabulous brains that give us consciousness. We think that sets us apart. It doesn’t.
We are not the most intelligent animal that has ever lived on this planet, let alone what intelligences may exist on other worlds. We are not even the most intelligent organism on this planet now. We are not even the most intelligent species of human who has ever lived on this planet.
Brains operate like super-computers. It is the size that is important. Our brains contain 85 billion brain cells – neurons – which is about the same number of stars as in a small galaxy. However each of those cells is connected via dendrites to between 10,000 and a 100,000 other brain cells. That is a staggering number of connections.
The human brain is between 1300 grams (the racists) and 1400 grams (the rest of us).
By comparison the brain of a chimpanzee (our closest relative with whom we share 99% of our genes) is only 400 grams.
There was a rapid evolutionary change occurred around 1.8 million years ago (very recent in evolutionary terms). Our brains grew from 400 grams to 1400 grams.
I said earlier that we are not the most intelligent animal on the planet. That distinction falls to the cetaceans. Not all of us consider them super-intelligent because they do not build cities and weapons. That is how we judge intelligence.
Whales and dolphins do not have limbs to create tools. They live in the sea and do not need shelter. They have plentiful food and do not need to work.
They play, sing, spend time together and enjoy themselves. They do not pollute, overpopulate or destroy one another. They are not cruel, barbaric and vicious. They do not create religions.
That sounds like intelligence to me.
The size of a sperm whales brain is a staggering 7800 grams. That is over five times that of a human.
The brain of a bottle-nose dolphin is between 1500-1700 grams – bigger than a human.
Of course you may like to suggest that intelligence is not all about brain size. The evidence from bird intelligence (with small brains) is that there are other factors though size is crucially important.
If you take into account body mass to brain ratio then we still do not come out too good. Even the tree shrew outdoes us.
The obvious intelligence of the cetaceans is extant in numerous ways and makes it even more disgusting when you consider the incredibly callous way we have treated them. We have deployed our technology to kill races of gentle, intelligent creatures. We have blown them up with explosive harpoons, stabbed and hacked them to death. In the Faroes they are still gaffing and sawing through their necks. The barbarity is appalling.
These creatures are probably more intelligent and sensitive than humans. Stop the slaughter!
It seems incredible to me that we spent billions trying to find even the most crudest form of life elsewhere in the galaxy while ignoring the obvious intelligent life under our own noses. Perhaps we should be trying harder to communicate?
Back to the subject.
I said earlier that we are not the most intelligent human that has lived on this planet. That accolade goes to the Neanderthals. We share a common ancestor and we even have some of their genes. There was some successful interbreeding. The Neanderthals, far from being the shambling cavemen of our cartoons, were more intelligent than us. Their brain size was 1500 grams to 1800 grams.
As more intelligent humans they were probably gentler. We – the moronic cousins – were more cynical and vicious. We lived side by side up until as recently as a mere 150,000 years ago. Then we destroyed them.
How I wish we hadn’t. Wouldn’t it be great if there were two intelligent species of human beings living on this planet now? It would blow all that religious superiority out of the water – particularly when we were clearly the lesser of the two in intelligence. The biblical stories would simply not hold water.
But that was not to be. We, the inferior intelligence, prevailed.
It goes to show that there is more to being human than intelligence.
Anthropocene Apocalypse – the Rights of Chimpanzees, Gorillas and Whales?
The Civil Rights battle is won. Human Beings are all one species and equal before the law in most countries. All that remains is to enforce the law, remove the vestiges of racism and establish true equality. There are still battles to be fought but the war is won.
What hasn’t yet been won is Rights for Primates and other sentient animals.
The primates (Gorillas, Chimpanzees, Orangutangs, Gibbons and Bonobos) are our closest relatives. They are obviously intelligent, have advanced family structures and behaviour patterns and yet are still being treated like vermin. Their habitat is being destroyed by logging and they are being butchered for food, trinkets, medicine and to procure pets.
We need a world-wide Civil Rights movement for Primates. They are need to be afforded rights, protected and given land to live in undisturbed.
Another group of intelligent organisms are the whales, dolphins and porpoises. They have bigger and more complex brains than humans, a social structure, language and high intelligence yet they are still being barbarically gaffed and callously hacked and sawed to death in barbaric acts. They too need to be afforded rights as sentient beings and protected!
Now is the time to campaign for Animal Rights!!!
Anthropocene Apocalypse – The sadistic slaughter of dolphins and porpoises. Shame on Denmark, Faroes and Japan!!!
Dolphins, porpoises and whales have brains analogous to human beings. They have language. They care for their children and have a family life. They are highly intelligent. They are also very sensitive and suffer pain.
Why is it considered alright in countries like Denmark, Japan and the Faroe Islands to indulge in gratuitous cruelty that is so barbaric it is beyond belief. It’s the sort of thing ISIS are doing – not civilised people. It is a frenzy of unbelievable sadistic, primitive viciousness.
Dolphins are herded into a shallow bay. People wade out among them, or use small boats. They are gaffed with a sharp hook while someone saws at their neck with a knife until they reach the deep spinal chord and bring their agony to an end.
For me this is no different to doing the same thing with humans. Imagine if I went down the high-street herding all the shoppers into a blind alley and then waded in with a sharp barbed hook, gaffed them and started sawing they heads off as they screamed.
There’s no difference!
Dolphins and porpoises are sentient beings. They feel pain. They have imagination. They should have human status and rights. This is murder.
In Tasmania I was taken by my friends Dylan and Julia to see the most idyllic Wineglass Bay with it’s cobalt blue waters. I thought it was called Wineglass Bay because of its shape but that was only part of the story. It was one of the places around the world where people carried out this horrendous act of slaughtering dolphins. It was called Wineglass bay because when this poor animals were being butchered alive the water of the bay would turn blood red. From the hills around it resembled a half full glass of Beaujolais. Imagine how much blood it takes to stain a vast bay like that blood red?
This has to stop!