It seems that very little is taboo when one can use events to potentially label the other side. A report of 73 dolphins washed up last week near the southern Iranian port of Jask last week (http://www.guardian.co.uk/international/story/0,,2203812,00.html) has led to a series of extraordinary exchanges. These dolphins were washed up in the same area as 79 Striped dolphins recorded last month. Initially, 'mass suicide' was blamed (unlikely on Darwinian grounds) and then there was speculation that fishermen in the area (there is a lot of tuna fishing here) may have 'beaten the dolphins with grappling irons after they became entangled in fishing nets'. Mr Sha'aban Al-Nezami (Head of the Iran state run fisheries organisation) has claimed, however, that this species of dolphin is "not normally found in the surrounding Persian Gulf and Oman Sea" and that the cetaceans might well have been victims of "the US military and its hi-tech hardware and spying equipment". He speculated that the dolphins may have been killed by water pollution,"electro-magnetic waves from military ships or a kind of virus disease." Examination of the bodies did not support poisoning or pollution as explanations but did find evidence of bruising. There have been military tests with dolphins, using these fast-swimming and highly trainable animals as interceptors of spying scuba divers, but it seems highly unlikely that these animals are victims of a mass, failed experiment (repeated at least once).
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