It's Complicated: The Lives of Dolphins & Scientists

The conference was winding down, and most attendees were heading home. But at a far end of the convention center in downtown San Diego last year, one room had drawn a late crowd: Two preeminent cetacean scientists were arguing that dolphins were too smart, and way too much like us, to capture or kill. At the high-profile annual meeting of the American Association for the Advancement of Science, conferring what amounted to personhood on dolphins was a professionally risky act.