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There was a RadioLab podcast about this story a few months ago (I believe it was RadioLab). Margaret was asked about the reports of sexual contact between her a
by giarc 11y ago
There was a RadioLab podcast about this story a few months ago (I believe it was RadioLab). Margaret was asked about the reports of sexual contact between her and Peter. Her response was, if I can paraphrase, that Peter would get distracted during the day because of his sexual urges. This would slow down the training Margaret was trying to do and therefore she would... fulfil his urges and Peter would then start to complete his training again.
This article fails to mention a few important details that I'm sure the BBC documentary will. The lead researcher was very much into drug culture and Margaret said in the podcast that he gave drugs to some of the dolphins (not Peter) hoping that it would "open their mind" and help with the language development. I don't remember clearly, but I'm not sure if the podcast mentioned the timeline of the experiment. I was surprised to read it was only 10 weeks.
- pvaldes 11y agoHorrible trainers doing stupid things. Everybody knows that dolphins can not be safely drugged. They stop to breath and die if you try to use sedatives or anesthesia.
- giarc 11y agoI think they were given LSD or other psychedelics. I think the idea was to relieve their inhibitions and their language skills would broaden. This is why we have research ethic boards now.
- pvaldes 11y agoThis could explain the agressive behaviour cited in several parts of the article and naively explained as "love". Poor animal.