Letter: How not to talk to the animals

JOHN McCRONE'S article on 'The Dr Doolittle of Kewala Basin' (Review, 23 May) and the 'talking dolphins' leads us to believe that the only problem with teaching dolphins to speak may be their lack of 'inner compulsion' to develop a meaningful dialogue with us.

What an astonishing assumption] Are we to understand that the small, concrete, barren pool in which the dolphins are forced to live is not a problem for them?

Dolphins in the wild possess their own superb means of communication and lead a natural, fulfilled, social life. The problem, as I see it, is that human beings can leave nothing alone: in this tragic case, in order to prove the ingenuity of man, rather than the cleverness of dolphins.

Virginia McKenna

The Born Free Federation

Coldharbour, Surrey