The relations men-dolphins go back up(raise) to the highest Antiquity, and they knew different fortunes. First of all, dolphins(dauphins) were considered as man's best friends, looking for his(her) company, volunteer with him and always loans, if need be, to carry(wear) him(her) help and to help it in his(her,its) maritime activities. Pline the Former(Ancient) was, in 70, a collector of taxes in Narbonnaise, and he wrote that dolphins(dauphins) had for custom to pull down(to reduce) mules in the nets of the fishermen; these, in thanking, offered to Cetaceans « some bread dipped into the wine ». Oppian quotes another example of cooperation on the coasts of Eubée. Even nowadays, on the coasts of Africa and in Far East, dolphins(dauphins) are, for certain populations of fishermen, of very useful allied that it is advisable to protect, even to worship and to honor.

On the other hand, in other regions, dolphins(dauphins) are considered as harmful, destroying(annulling) big quantities of fishes, causing grave averages in nets. So much that in 1865 the 5th maritime district (Toulon) promulgated measures aiming at fighting(disputing) the small Cetaceans. Then name appeared, at the beginning of the present century, the "béluga", under which we indicated(appointed) an unknown animal of the zoologists, an exact description of which nobody could give, but which we accused of ravaging nets, of destroying(annulling) the benches of sardines, and which we made responsible for all the disaster the coastal fishermen of which could be victims. The Administration was then brought to prescribe spectacular measures against it mystic " béluga »: employment(use) of rifles, artillery of 37, even 75, poison, inoculation of the fury, immense dams of nets, dirigible (1912), planes, allocation of premiums a head of arrested animal (frank-golden 25), etc. All this without big result. He(it) is certain that the machines of peach(fishing) were often damaged; but the real culprits were very difficult to identify: small Cetaceans, naturally, but also certain sharks and dogfishes. Be that as it may, the term of " béluga » now went out of use in this meaning of a word and does not apply more than to dolphin(dauphin) (Delphinapterusleucas), who lives exclusively in Antarctica. The unanimity was not moreover absolved as regards the harmful character of the small Cetaceans. In certain points of the Atlantic Ocean, their presence is a part of what the fishermen call "appearances", revealing the presence of shoals of fish.

A grounding of Cetaceans, big or small, was always considered by the local residents as a sort of heavenly basket, a contribution of edible flesh and the oil all the possible party of which was pulled(fired). So instead of waiting for a problematic and coincidental grounding, the idea came quite naturally to the spirit of the sailors to fetch in the wide this magnificent chance of a lifetime. And so probably became established the industry Basque baleinière and, by the same process, in various points of the world, an exploitation of dolphins(dauphins') crowds.

For example, in the Pacific, in the southeast of islands Salomon ( Malaïta), Stenella holds a big place in the life of the islanders. This sort, which sometimes collects in troops from hundred to six hundred adults, is looked for for the human food and also because its teeth have a commercial value considered at 5 hundred detail(room) (we make it necklaces costing up to 50 dollars).

Closer of us, two nations practised the systematic hunting of Delphinidés, mainly common dolphins(dauphins): the U.R.S.S and Turkey, on the south coast of the Black Sea. This one realized considerable arrests: from 3000 to 5000 t annually on average, with points of 5000 in 8000 t; the maximum of the U.R.S.S was of the order of 3500 tons. We so believed to reach(affect) a double purpose: produce some edible flesh and destroy(annul) animals considered as predators. It was an overexploitation there which did not delay determining a very fast decline of the production. Then, in 1966, the Soviet government, returning on the prejudice of "harmful" dolphins(dauphins), took measures intended to protect them.

In Norway, the hunters of minke sometimes harpoon tall dolphins(dauphins): killer whales, let us hyperoodons, globicéphales; but it is not question of a systematic exploitation. Moreover, almost everywhere in the world, these same sorts and the others else, as Berardius and the béluga, are a part of the coincidental game of the hunters. The béluga deserves however a special mention: he(it) made in Canada, object precise surprise, a real "sonar" which allows them to go in the darkness or the shadier waters, to avoid the obstacles and even to identify their preys. This écholocation is the object of detailed searches(researches), which are far from being finished. The grounding of Cetaceans are exactly awarded to the fact that their "sonar" does not allow them to discover beaches or very sweet sloping strikes on which their claimed suicides always take place. It is as a matter of fact about accidents of navigation due to the absence of echo. The exit is fatal there in most of the cases, especially in seas in tides and when the grounding occurred at the time of the plain.