Why do these islands hunt dolphins

A conch shell’s call rescued the dolphin hunters from their bed. Under the moonlight, six people reshuffled the village church.

There a priest took him to a whispering prayer, his voice is barely audible at the sound of crashed waves; The tide was high that day. Lucky water was pooled in some parts of the village, which is on the fhanley island, which is part of the Solomon Islands in South Pacific.

They came out in the wooden canoe before the first light, cutting from the dark until they were miles away from the edge. After hours of scanning the horizon, one of the hunters, Leslie Fugui saw a wing sliced ​​glass water. He raised a 10 -foot -long bamboo pole with a piece of cloth tied at the end, alerting other people of his discovery. Then he made a call to his wife. He got a dolphin. Hunting will begin.

These people are the last dolphin hunter of the Solomon Islands. Some protectionists say that the slaughter is cruel and unnecessary. But for 130 or so many residents of Fanlei, the traditional victim has taken a renewed urgency because climate change threatens their home. They say they require dolphins for their attractive teeth, used as local currency, to buy land on high ground and escape from their sinking house.

Each tooth receives 3 Solomon Islands dollars (approximately $ 0.36) – a value determined by the heads of Fanlet – and a single hunting of about 200 dolphins can bring more than any other economic activity on the island to more than any other economic activity.

“We are sorry to kill Dolphin, but we really have no choice,” said Mr. Fugui. He said he would be ready to leave the victim, if he said, if there was an alternative way to secure the future of his family.

Crops can no longer be grown on a fanley, which is a central park -shaped size in New York City. Once fertile land has been ruined by encroaching salt water. The government has promoted marine algae farming as a source of income, while foreign protection groups have offered cash to end the hunting. But the ocean remains both an existent threat and the most profitable resource of the villagers. Government research suggests that the island may be under water by the end of the century.

Fanley’s leading head Wilson File said, “For a lower-lower island like us, we are witness to our eyes how the rise of the sea is affecting our lives.”

Over time, dolphin teeth have allowed villagers to pay for an extension for a new church, a sea wall and local primary school.

During the hunting season, which runs from January to April, people here can kill a thousand dolphins, but the hunters say that the weather is becoming increasingly unpredictable, making it difficult for them to detect and implicate a pod.

While dolphin meat is eaten and stopped with neighboring islands for food, betel nuts and other products, tooth is the correct prize of hunting. They are used for cultural activities, and future groom’s families buy by hundreds of people to give to a woman during a traditional bridal price ceremony.

In recent years, most of the villagers have fled to a neighboring island. They continue to hunt dolphins from there, saying that they have been left behind and need to buy more land to support their growing population.

Dolphin Hunting is a community case in the fanley. When Mr. Fugui raised his flag that morning, he stopped a cacoffney of happiness. The children climbed the trees to see the hunters and pleased the dolphins in the local Lau language – so that every resident would know that the hunting had started. Men in the canoe hanging close to the edge broke through waves in the open sea to help the poachers to make a semicircle around the dolphin and brought them to the ground.

The teeth, once collected, are shared between every family according to a strict level system: the hunter gets the largest part (“first prize”); Married men who did not participate get the next largest part; And the remaining teeth are divided without widows, orphans and other homes without a male representative.

Village leaders also separated a part of the teeth, which they call the “community basket” for major functions. One day, he hopes that it will involve the purchase of land to expand a rehabilitation village on the big South Malita Island.

These shares are an important security trap for residents such as Eddie Sua and his family. Mr. Sua was once a skilled fisherman and dolphin hunter, who was mysteriously paralyzed from the neck below two years ago, and he has been in bed since then. These days, during high tide, flood in his house.

He said, “We have to be afraid of these floods, because this will work to save us our lives,” he said, looking at the salt water on the sides of our bed.

Dolphin Hunting is very good or “Good Tamaz”, Mr. Sua’s wife, Florence Bobo said in the local Pizin language, especially now that she is unable to support her husband family, as she once did. They both eventually expect enough money to move the island.

“If we did not have dolphin teeth, we would have no other option but to eat rocks,” Mr. Sua said jokingly.

But a successful prey is never certainty. After spotting the dolphin, Sri Fugui and other hunters began beating the pee -shaped rocks under water to drive the pod towards the edge. But a traler passed behind him, the roar of his engine drowned his sluggish girls. Dolphins scattered and men returned empty -handed.

In half the way of this year’s season, only one successful prey in the Solomon Islands, where a village near Fanleti killed more than 300 dolphins.

Experts say it is not clear whether the dolphin hunting is durable or not. Rochelle Constantine, a marine biologist who teaches at the University of Auckland, and a climate and environmental researcher of the Solomon Islands, Kabini Afia, said that some more commonly more commonly hunted species show healthy population. But the effects of prey are still more coastal and unclear on small dolphins.

For the people of the fanley, a more pressure question is not the future of the dolphin – this is their own existence in front of the emerging seas.

“Dolphin hunting can be our identity,” Mr. Fugui said, “But our life and the lives of our children – that’s important.”