Dolphins can understand complex gesture "sentences" from humans. And they can learn to poke an underwater keyboard to request toys to play with. "Much of their learning is similar to what we see with young children," says Reiss. So if dolphins are so similar to people, shouldn"t we be treating them more like people? For example, should we really being keeping them captive in zoos and aquariums? "The very traits that make dolphins interesting to study," says Marino, "make confining them in captivity unethical." She notes, for example, that in the wild, dolphins have a home range of about 100 square kilometers. In captivity, they roam one-ten-thousandth of 1% of this. Reiss is more concerned with the massive dolphin culling seen in some parts of the world. She showed graphic video of dolphins being drowned and stabbed as the waters turned red with blood in places such as the Japanese town of Taiji. Now that scientists know so much about how dolphins think and feel, she said, they should use that data to build a bridge to the public—a big theme of this year"s meeting. "Our scientific knowledge needs to be used to influence international policy and ethical considerations," she said. "Scientific facts should transcend geographic boundaries."