| Field | Value |
|---|---|
| HTA ID | HTA-0597 |
| Title | Dolphin Tale — Movie Review and Dolphin Conservation |
| Era | KRON-TV (San Francisco, ~2009–2013) |
| Station | KRON-TV Channel 4 |
| Program | KRON4 News Weekend |
| Role | Host / Reporter / Interviewer |
| Segment Type | Feature |
| Duration | ~3:34 |
| Source File | 1259599_4530726965622_63213_n.txt |
| Record Version | V1 (Transcript Only) |
Henry reviews the film Dolphin Tale and discusses dolphin conservation.
00:04 Dolphin Tale opened this weekend. 00:06 The movie Dolphin Tale opened this weekend, and boy, big deal. 00:09 Lots of really critical acclaim for this film. 00:12 Dolphins are a big deal these days, and we have an expert here who says they are a lot 00:17 smarter than most people realize. 00:19 Let me introduce you to Diana Rice. 00:21 She is the professor of cognitive psychology at Hunter College. 00:25 She's also director of a research program on dolphin cognition at the National Aquarium. 00:30 Did I get all that right? 00:31 You're great. 00:31 In Baltimore. 00:32 And she's the author of the book, The Dolphin in the Mirror. 00:35 And I want to just immediately go to some video that we have of these dolphins. 00:40 And this is video of yours. 00:41 Yes. 00:42 And what are we seeing here? 00:43 This is a dolphin looking at itself in a mirror. 00:47 So we studied this. 00:48 We gave a dolphin a mirror and we showed that they, like us, can understand that that's them in a mirror. 00:54 And they figured it out and they actually want to look at themselves. 00:57 Are they smiling? 00:58 Look at the smile. 00:58 I mean, that's the goofiest looking smile. 01:00 I know I'm anthropomorphizing here. 01:02 Yeah, that's their face. 01:03 But they are really interested. 01:05 And these are highly intelligent, sentient creatures. 01:08 We all know that they're smart. 01:11 But how do we compare it to, like, a dog, a cat, a human, a chimp? 01:16 Well, just let's take the mirror test, for example. 01:18 So humans recognize themselves in a mirror. 01:20 Our closest relatives, the great apes, can do it. 01:23 Monkeys can. 01:24 Dogs can't. 01:26 Cats can. 01:27 Wow. 01:27 Yeah, so it's very rare that other animals can do this. 01:31 It takes a certain amount of smarts and figuring out that that's me that I'm seeing, 01:36 that what I'm seeing in the mirror is related to what I'm doing. 01:40 And they have big, complex brains. 01:42 They are also remarkably playful. 01:43 We have some other video. 01:45 This is amazing. 01:46 Now, this is a dolphin that actually is blowing its own little rings of air, right? 01:51 Beautiful silver rings. 01:52 And we saw this originally right here in the Bay Area at Marine World, Africa USA, where 01:58 I used to be research director. 01:59 And the dolphins will take a position and they pop up a little bit of air and it forms into 02:04 a ring and they play with it. 02:06 So you're going to see a dolphin blowing one ring of air, blowing a second ring. 02:10 The second ring meets up with the first, forms a hoop, and they swim through it. 02:15 So dolphins create their own objects of play. 02:18 And that is the first time we've seen that. 02:19 So I'm sorry, I don't have a monitor. 02:21 Are we seeing that video? 02:22 Because it's really pretty impressive. 02:24 It's incredible. 02:25 So the point is, the point is that, oh, we already saw the video of the dolphin going 02:30 through the ring. 02:31 Okay. 02:31 So the point here is that these are creatures that deserve respect, but they ain't getting 02:38 as much respect as a dog, a cat, or even a lab rat would in many places. 02:42 Yes. 02:43 In our country, they're very well protected and in many other countries. 02:46 But as we saw in the film, the Cove, the award Oscar winning film, the Cove, they're still 02:50 being killed and in a very brutal, inhumane manner in places in Japan, in Taiji, and in 02:57 other countries. 02:57 They're still being hunted and killed. 02:59 And these animals are incredibly sentient, sensitive. 03:03 If you scratch them, they flinch. 03:05 So I've written this book to get increased awareness and protection for these animals. 03:09 The book is called The Dolphin in the Mirror: Exploring Dolphin Minds and Saving Dolphin 03:13 Lives. 03:14 35 years of experience. 03:15 She started as an infant, Diana Rice. 03:18 And she is going to be appearing today at the Community Church of Sebastopol, 1000 Gravenstein 03:25 in Sebastopol. 03:26 That's tonight at 7:00 p.m. if you want to hear more about it. 03:29 Thank you very much for joining us. 03:30 Thanks for having me. 03:31 And now two people who are even smarter than dolphins. 03:34 Marty, Isabel.