I remember when I was a child back in my country the first time that I saw a 
dolphin. Actually it was not one but many of these nice creatures jumping around 
in the waters of the beach close to my house in Peru. In the beginning, I was 
afraid because I thought they were sharks. At that time, because I was a kid, I 
did not understand many things that were going on in that picture. Why are 
these fishes too close to the people in the beach? Do these fishes feel not afraid 
of us? Why do these animals look so happy? It took me a long time to answer all 
my questions. First of all, my father told me that they were not sharks but 
bufeos. These are kinds of dolphins very common in the different waters of Peru. 
He also told me that these animals were not fish and inoffensive. Dolphins 
behave friendly when humans are close. However, humans are still treating them in a 
very opposite way. Dolphins are chased, and being handled cruelly by the 
superior species: the human beings, according to Darwin, in the animal kingdom. 
However, dolphins deserve better treatment. Research has found that this kind of 
mammal can be considered as persons; even though, we need to know more about them. 
Dolphins, as far as we know, qualify for the philosophical terminology of 
person. 
	The meaning of the concept person is described quite differently by many 
approaches. However, these definitions, to some extent, have in common many 
characteristics. The qualifications that any being or alien has to fulfill in order to 
be called person mainly are to be alive, to be aware, to feel positive and 
negative sensations, to have a sense of self, to control their own behaviors, to 
recognize other persons appropriately, to have intelligence and the capacity for 
communication. Here, it is very important to say that there is a misconception 
with the word person. Many people assume that all human beings are persons 
because the meaning of these two last concepts is the same. But this is wrong. You 
can be a human but not a person. There are many humans lamentably who do not 
accomplish many attributes of the person concept. People who have brain death 
injury are examples of this. Why? In many cases these ill people are not aware of 
their environment. For this reason and many others these ill people do not 
achieve the status of person. 
Now, there is a question that arises from this philosophical thought that is, 
can a non-human be considered a person? 
As I have mentioned above, the first characteristic in order to fulfill the 
status of a person is that any being must be alive. Because dolphins are beings 
that are classified as animals, they are individuals with certain life's 
characteristics. They born, grow-up, and die accomplishing this animals' attribute. So, 
dolphins easily achieve this first requirement of the person concept.
Second, dolphins are aware of their environment. Because humans do not know 
exactly how the world of dolphins looks like, we can not recognize if dolphins 
have the same awareness, as we perceive the world. Nevertheless, dolphins have 
shown through many experiments that they can accomplish to some extent this 
attribute. According to Hawaii's Kewalo Basin Marine Mammal Laboratory (2002), 
considering the awareness of dolphins:
The dolphins' ability to carry out whichever action is called for, repeating 
what it just did or choosing a different behavior, means that it must maintain a 
mental representation of the behavior it last performed and update that 
regularly as each new behavior is performed. In other words, it must remains aware of 
its own behaviors.
Dolphins are conscious animals that have a sense of their environment, thus 
accomplishing the requisite of person.
Third, dolphins feel negative and positive sensation. As every animal, 
dolphins can perceive sensations. Positive and negative feelings are observed 
in dolphins. You can see and experience how dolphins behave in a positive way 
when they swim in the different waters in their habitats. On the contrary, if you 
were to harm the body, the skin of a dolphin is very sensitive, or do something 
against the free will of any dolphin, dolphins will respond in a negative way, 
showing their disapproval. As we observe dolphin's senses are highly developed 
achieving this person characteristic. 
Fourth, dolphins have a sense of self with emotions. Dolphins have 
shown through many research that they are able to recognize themselves as 
separate beings. One of these studies that proves this allegation is the well-known 
mirror test. Here, dolphins have to see through a mirror their images and be 
able to distinguish them from other beings. Dolphins have tested excellent in 
tests of this kind. Because dolphins have a language indecipherable by humans, 
they can not communicate their emotions as humans do. However, the presence of the 
self in these intelligent beings makes us think that they have their own 
emotions. Nevertheless, these emotions are very different from human emotions. 
Dolphin's individuality fulfills this requirement of person idea.
Fifth, dolphins control their own behaviors. So, they can be held 
responsible for their actions. Research has found how dolphins working together 
achieve success. Dolphins' ability to prey in groups demonstrated how these 
creatures have acquired successful control among their members. If they find 
enough fish to eat, they make sure that everybody in the group of dolphins will eat. 
Dolphins easily interchange posts among themselves. At the time of hunting, 
some dolphins eat while others take care of the fish. This pattern is 
interchangeable until every one obtains its food. There is not selfish behavior in 
dolphins. If they show egoistic conduct, the rest of the dolphins in the group will 
isolate the one who is committing trouble until the uncooperative dolphin learns 
the lesson. This way of living in dolphins teaches others beings how to interact 
sociably without causing a prejudiced harm. Dolphins manage and fix their 
conducts by accomplishing this requisite.
Sixth, dolphins recognize and treat other persons appropriately. They 
swim regularly in groups or schools. When any of the dolphins is having a 
trouble, the other dolphins assist the one in danger. As an example, dolphins help 
sick dolphins to breathe. As we know, dolphins have to breathe fresh air from 
the surface. So, when there is a sick dolphin, the others in the school do not 
allow it to drown. Dolphins will push the one in difficulty above the water. In 
addition, when dolphins are chased by enemies, the other dolphins help them to 
escape. When an enemy comes close, the dolphins make a circle. Most of the time 
an enemy is not going to attack them when they are in group. Dolphins 
distinguish other beings by taking care of them in many situations. And by so doing, 
they carry out this requisite.
Next, dolphins have intelligence. The neurophysiologist John C. Lilly 
(1961) affirms that “dolphins represent a non-human form of intelligence on 
this planet” Dolphins have been tested in numerous and different experiments, and 
the results have been satisfactory. They have successfully accomplished the 
screen test. Here, dolphins have to watch a TV screen and notice what is going on 
Because of dolphins' intelligence, they can perceive their real environment 
from TV images. Dolphins have shown that they are very intelligent creatures. And 
this knowledge was not recently acquired. Dolphins have been living on earth 
for more than 20 million years. In this way, dolphins have learned how to cope 
with the many different situations in their lives. Dolphins' mental abilities 
accomplish this requirement.
Last, dolphins have the capacity for communication. So far as we 
know, humans are not able to understand dolphins. Nevertheless, dolphins have 
their own language. Because humans do not interpret fully dolphin language, it 
does not mean that dolphins lack this important attribute of persons. Dolphins 
can communicate with each other using a variety of visual and acoustic signals. 
Dolphins can make several kind of sounds such as whistles, barks, pops, chirps, 
and echolocation clicks. Dolphins transmit thoughts to other beings, 
accomplishing the last requisite of person definition.
	Because humans through the history of civilization had acquired important 
achievements such as language, intelligence, culture, and technology, they also had 
granted superiority status among other animals in the same kingdom. But are 
these achievements really worthy? Do humans use these accomplishments in the 
proper way? Or are they just means for personal success in a competitive world. 
Every day we witness how large groups of people fight against each other around the 
world, in many cases committing murder in big numbers. In addition, we are 
also, in a lot of cases, passive spectators when dealing with poverty in needed 
countries. Millions of human beings do not care about these facts unless it will 
affect them individually. Many times people do not do anything for their 
fellows; however, dolphins do. Dolphins fulfill broadly the different requirements of 
the person concept.
	We must do something in order to protect dolphins. Every day humans kill and 
use this specie to satisfy just humans' necessities. Humans commercialize and 
keep in captivity dolphins without enough control.
	Dolphins are very attractive prizes for fishermen. Not only humans eat 
dolphin's flesh, but different parts of the dolphin body also are used for different 
reasons. There are 30 different kinds of dolphins around the world. Some of them 
are close to extinction. We must make laws protecting dolphins. Dolphins must 
have certain rights such liberty, life, and pursuit of happiness; even though, 
we do not fully know how dolphins' world looks like.
	Dolphins deserve a better life. In humans' world, dolphins are seeing as 
inferior animals. They are used for military proposes. Instead of trying to find 
more information about the invaluable of dolphins' lives, dolphins are sent 
sometimes to death. A military goal, among others, is training dolphins for war and 
dolphins have been trained to localize mines. This action, which is very 
dangerous, sometimes makes blow up dolphins.
	Fishing indiscriminately of dolphins, is another problem that humans have to 
deal with. Humans do not respect dolphins' precious life. Fishermen chase 
irresponsibly dolphins. Humans do not respect biological cycles in this specie, 
leading them, sometimes to be extinguished. If a calf were found while fishing, 
fisherman would not put it back in the waters. Fishermen will continue fishing 
without any inconvenient. However, if we implement laws protecting dolphins, these 
actions will be controlled and penalized and dolphins will subsist longer.
	Many times dolphins are chased for the only reason of human's entertainment 
and this action deprives dolphin's liberty. Dolphins are creatures that like to 
change habitats. They swim long distances either when they lack things such food 
or when the weather is not too good. Dolphins are free creatures that love to 
play around in their respective schools. They do not have barriers. However, 
humans do not respect this freedom. Humans put dolphins in aquariums, depriving 
dolphins' free will. Here, dolphins are kept in captivity for life. In addition, 
some dolphins are trained for shows. Many times dolphins die soon because they 
do not use to live this way. It is unfair to place dolphins in reduced places 
and many behaviors in dolphins are changed. Dolphins anymore chased or play as 
they use to practice.
	Even though, we do not know exactly what dolphins' pursuit of happiness looks 
like, we can assume that the best way is keeping us as far as we can from their 
lives. Dolphins have evolved for more than 40 million years. This means that 
they were able to cope with their problems through this long period. Humans are 
not supposed to interfere in their lives. If dolphins have been living in this 
successful way, people must respect them. Furthermore, using our sophisticated 
brains, we can make the world of dolphins much better.