Since she was a little child, Margaret Howe Lovatt has had a deep affection for animals. Her mother giving her a book about a talking cat when she was a little child is one of her first recollections. As a result, she developed a lifelong passion for animals and their communication systems. In the 1960s, she played a significant role in a NASA-funded investigation.
Margaret Howe Lovatt, an animal researcher, was able to train dolphins to speak English. But in the end, Lovatt taught one dolphin in particular, Peter. On the other side, the dolphin ended his life.
Lovatt claims that the dolphin is "coming of age." As they became close, Peter constantly touched various parts of Lovatt's body, shoving her like an "obsessed suitor."
NASA's Experiment Failed as Dolphin Falls in Love Instead of Learning How To Talk
The experiment involved the two spending six days a week in solitude in a semi-aquatic location known as The Dolphin House. To prevent disruptions to the English courses, the living situation was selected.
However, Lovatt and Peter's chemistry gradually progressed to a sexual nature. In the Thought Catalog article, Lovatt hinted that the dolphin likes to be close to her.
When Peter started making advances, Lovatt would send him downstairs to interact with the dolphins, but this proved too disruptive for the experiment. His arousals were inconsistent.
In other investigations, researchers were examining the effects of LSD at the same time as the dolphin experiment. Only a select group of scientists were granted permission to conduct drug experiments and administer the treatment to animals, including dolphins.
A debate ensued as a result. It was commonly believed that Lovatt was abusing Peter by injecting him with LSD. Despite the uproar, she steadfastly denied the allegations and kept a relationship with the dolphin.
That connection of needing to be together changed into a relationship of actually enjoying being together, wanting to be together, and missing him when he wasn't as the scientific world became more involved with LSD and less convinced.
The dolphin experiment's financing was halted, despite the need to teach animals to speak English. In Miami, Lovatt and Peter were split up, and Peter was put in a smaller, dimly lit tank.
As a result, Peter committed suicide. According to Daily Mail, the dolphin allegedly stopped breathing and plummeted to the bottom of the tank.
Dolphin's Suicide Explained
An crucial point regarding confined animals was raised by the tale. They also raise the issue of what suicide actually entails for dolphins. Slate's Brian Palmer researched the vast history of inquiries into animal suicide.
Because suicide necessitates a range of higher-order cognitive abilities, according to Palmer, it is hard to tell whether the animals are killing themselves in the same manner that people do.
It demands self-awareness, the capacity for speculation about the future, and the knowledge that one's activities will lead to death. However, nobody is certain if animals are able to do all of this.
The founder of The Kimmela Center for Animal Advocacy, behavioral neuroscientist, and dolphin specialist Lori Marino holds the opinion that certain animals have a sense of identity and are capable of making plans for their own demise. She told HuffPost that dolphins have the physiology necessary to carry out their objectives.
The illness known as "failure to thrive," which occurs when animals stop eating and socializing, is the "fade away." according to Marino, for dolphin suicide.
According to a marine mammologist with the Humane Society who spoke to PBS, failure to flourish brought on by the harsh conditions of confinement might be viewed as a kind of suicide.
Like Peter, a dolphin may choose to end their lives in much more dramatic ways. Marino makes a case for this possibility in a white paper shared with HuffPost.
In his article "Suicide in Dolphins: A Possibility?" Marino said that dolphins possess the cognitive capacity to plan and commit suicide. National Geographic wrote that Marino, who proposed that the National Aquarium retire its dolphin exhibits, thinks that dolphins can plan and carry out suicides.
Additionally, according to Marino, dolphins possess the physical capacity to purposely hold their breath until they pass away. She asserts that their brains are also sufficiently advanced to support a "sophisticated capacity for feeling" as well as "the types of cognitive processes that would be involved in complicated motivational states, such as those that precede thoughts of suicide."
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