Leah Lemieux is an author and lecturer who has been working on cetacean protection, education and conservation initiatives for twenty years, collaborating with individuals and NGOs from a number of countries.

In 2009, she published a book of her years of personal experiences with dolphins entitled “Rekindling the Waters: The Truth About Swimming with Dolphins”.

Leah says: Over the last twenty–odd years of research and conservation work, I’ve spent hundreds and hundreds of hours observing different cetacean species in very close proximity. These long years of first hand experiences taught me that dolphins are indeed richly aware, thinking, feeling, beings—Persons.

*Back when I started this work in the late 1980s, a conference on the topic of non-human personhood at an Ivy League university would have seemed like an impossible dream. So it is VERY exciting to see different branches of science, study and thought bringing this matter into the public and academic arena here today.

*Millions of people around the world have been inexplicably touched by close encounters with wild whales and dolphins. When asked, they usually they find it very difficult to articulate exactly why seeing these creatures close up in their natural element is so deeply exhilarating. People lucky enough to look into the eye of a dolphin or whale, may be profoundly struck by what they glimpse there. Is this what happens when a human being comes into contact with another non-human Person?

Much more to read on Leah’s interesting web site at:

www.rekindlingthewaters.com