I was going to give an intelligent speech. Last night, when I was frantically searching for topics to write a speech about, many caught my attention. I wanted to talk about the relationship between humanity and AI. Ableism in modern America. French philosopher Albert Camus’ The Myth of Sisyphus viewed through an anti-capitalist lens. But I was stressed, exhausted, and we were about to have dinner. So I went with something else instead.

I am giving a speech on whether dolphins are evil.

I know, I know. “But dolphins are adorable!” you say. “They’re cute and innocent, with their huge smiles and high-pitched chirps!” But you don’t know that for sure. In our society, pro-dolphin propaganda has permeated our very core foundations. Dolphins are associated with elementary school mascots, glittery backpacks, and worst of all, sappy movies. But what do we really know about dolphins? Could they be moral degenerates? Today, we’re answering that question. Today, I’ll expose the truth.

First, let’s consider the facts. Dolphins kill not only their babies but also the babies of other species. 

According to Whale Science, male dolphins frequently gang up in large groups to murder a calf. They do this by ramming into it, biting it, and even keeping it in the water until it drowns since dolphins need to come up for air. According to a JSTOR study, five infant dolphins were found with fatal injuries consistent with a bottlenose dolphin attack. 

However, the males aren’t too careful on their warpaths. Dolphins killed more than 100 baby harbor porpoises in one study alone. Allegedly, they confused harbor porpoises with members of their own species. But I suspect they are really killing them for sport.

Imagine if a group of people started punting a Pitbull puppy multiple feet in the air like a volleyball. Obviously, that would be outrageous! But at the Dolphin Research Center in Grassy Key, dolphins did just that. According to United Press International, 19 dolphins used a baby shark that had accidentally wandered into their enclosure as a volleyball. The staff had to rush to rescue the vulnerable infant shark from the crowd of dolphins before they caused serious injury or even death. The worst part is that this is only one incident. This isn’t the first time staff needed to rescue baby sharks from the dolphins, and it won’t be the last.

So, dolphins are not as kid-friendly as the media wants you to believe. But they’re not just cruel to infants-- they’re straight-up sadistic.

While shooting a documentary for BBC One, researchers discovered a group of dolphins purposely agitating a pufferfish by biting it to make it release toxic chemicals. Why, you ask, would dolphins want pufferfish to release those chemicals? Simple. They were getting high. The young dolphins passed the pufferfish around a circle, each giving it a bite, and then flipped around in a trance or stared at their reflection. That innocent pufferfish, who was probably extremely confused, was nothing more than Zaza to those dolphins. Some of that 420. Just a bit of doobie grass for their blunt rotation. How would you feel if you were the pufferfish getting gently chewed by monstrous beings so they could get high off the scent of your blood?

Additionally, dolphins are known for “playing with their food.” Instead of quickly and painlessly ending their prey, they torture fish before they eat them, sometimes even tossing them out of the water to watch them slowly and painfully suffocate before eating them.

Orcas, for example, the largest species of dolphin, show no mercy to the animals they hunt. They torture seals before killing them by throwing them in the air, slapping them with their tails, or ramming into them. They toss seals dozens of feet high into the air so when the seal hits the water, it hits it with so much force its body is all but torn apart.

All of these things sound pretty bad. Some of you may be tempted to condemn dolphins altogether now. But if you don’t want to, that’s okay too. Because the truth is, the answer to my question is that dolphins aren’t evil. No animals are evil. But no animals are good, either. 

You see, too often we anthropomorphize animals. We ascribe human motivations to them. We rank them based on how nice they look, and how tamable they are-- all based on our standards. The reason that everyone likes dolphins is not that they’re better than any other animal, or because of Deep State dolphin propaganda-- it’s because humans relate to them. We see them as mystical creatures. When they’re helping injured surfers to shore, they’re “so intelligent and kind.” But when they’re killing for sport, “they’re just animals. They don’t know what they’re doing.” 

The lesson of this speech is, we can’t define animals as morally good or evil, whether it’s an annoying mosquito or an adorable dolphin. Throughout the whole planet, the only species we know can be moral or immoral… is ourselves. When people define all dolphins as moral or immoral, they make the same mistake that many make when defining all humans as moral or immoral. In assigning morality to a whole species, you inevitably let any action they take off the hook. “If my entire species is morally bad,” a person might say, “then what’s the point of trying at all?” Or, on the other hand, someone might think that humans are automatically good and therefore, there is no need to improve themselves. This line of thinking is dangerous not only for humanity but for the planet itself. All of us have an individual responsibility as humans-- and whether we consider nature good or bad, nothing can change that.

But I do think we should lay a bit off of the excessive dolphin praise, though.