The call of a conch shell broke the dolphin hunters from their beds. Under the light of the moon, the six men mixed in the village church.
There, a priest led them to a whispered prayer, his voice just heard above the sound of the wave crash. The tide was high that day. Salty water was concentrated in parts of the village, located on the island of Fanalei, a constantly shrinking land that is part of Solomon’s islands in the South Pacific.
They pulled out on wooden canoes before the first light, cutting the dark until they were removed miles from the coast. After hours of scanning the horizon, one of the hunters, Lesley Fugui, saw a flap carrying the glassy water. He set a 10 -foot bamboo pole with a piece of cloth linked to the end, warning others of his discovery. Then he made a phone call to his wife. He had found dolphins. Hunting will begin.
These men are one of the last dolphin hunters of the Solomon islands. Some conservationists say that the slaughter is cruel and unnecessary. But for about 130 inhabitants of Fanalei, traditional hunting has taken on the renewed urgent need, as climate change threatens their home. They say they need dolphins for their lucrative teeth, which are used as a local currency, to buy land on higher ground and to escape the sinking in their home.
Each tooth brings 3 dollars of salmon islands (about $ 0.36) – a price set by Fanalei leaders – and a single hunt for about 200 dolphins can bring tens of thousands of dollars, more than any other economic activity on the island.
“We also regret the murder of dolphins, but we do not really have an option,” Mr Fugui said. He would be willing to give up hunting, he added, if there was an alternative way to secure the future of his family.
Crops can no longer be cultivated in Fanalei, which is about one -third of Central Park in New York. The once fruitful land has been destroyed by the resignation of salty water. The government has promoted algae cultivation as a source of income, while overseas conservation teams have offered cash to end hunting. But the ocean remains both an existential threat and the most profitable resource of the peasants. Government investigations show that the island could be underwater by the end of the century.
“For a low island like ours, we see with our eyes how Sea Rise affects our lives,” said Wilson Filei, head of Fanalei.
Over time, the d
During the hunting season, which runs from January to April, people here can kill up to a thousand dolphin, but hunters say the weather is becoming more and more unpredictable, making it harder for them to locate and trap a pod.
While dolphin meat is eaten and exchanged with neighboring islands for food, betel nuts and other products, teeth are the real hunting prize. They are used for cultural activities and families of their future grooms buy from hundreds to give a woman during a traditional bride price ceremony.
In recent years, most villagers have left on a neighboring island. They continue to chase the dolphins from there, saying that they have to buy more land to house those who left behind and support their growing population.
Dolphin hunting is a community affair in Fanalei. When Mr Fugui set his flag that morning, he put a cacophony of enjoyment. The children climbed the trees to watch the hunters and shouted “Kirio” – the dolphin in the local Lau – so that every resident knows that hunting had begun. Men in a canoe hanging near the shore broke the waves in the open ocean to help hunters form a semicircle around the dolphins and take them to the ground.
The teeth, once collected, are shared between each family according to a rigorous tier system: hunters take the largest share (“first prize”). Married men who did not participate took the next longer. And the rest of the teeth are separated between widows, orphans and other men without a male representative.
The leaders of the village also concern a part of the teeth in what they call a “community basket” for big projects. One day, they hope that this will include the land market to expand a village of re -establishment to the largest island of South Malaita.
These shares are an important safety net for residents such as Eddie Sua and his family. Mr Sua was once a specialized fisherman and dolphin hunter, who was mysteriously paralyzed by the throat two years ago and has since passed since then. These days, during the tide, his floods in his home.
“We have to be afraid of these floods, because this will make us act to save our lives,” he said, seeing the licking of salty water on the sides of his bed.
Dolphin hunting is very good or “good tumas”, Mr Sua’s wife, Florence Bobo, said in the local Pijin language, especially now that her husband is unable to support the family as once. Both hope they finally have enough money to move from the island.
“If we didn’t have dolphin teeth, we would have no choice but to eat rocks,” Mr Sua was joking.
But a successful hunt is never certain. After the dolphins were identified, Mr Fugui and the other hunters began to hit rocks sized fist under the water to drive the lobe to the coast. But a bank passed behind them, the roar of its engine, drowning out the dull noise of their rocks. The dolphins were scattered and the men returned on an empty hand.
Halfway through this season, there was only one successful hunt on the islands of Solomon, where a village near Fanalei killed over 300 dolphins.
Experts say it is not clear whether dolphin hunting is sustainable. Rochelle Constantine, a marine biologist who teaches at Auckland University, and Kabini AFIA, a climate and environmental researcher from the Solomon islands, said that some of the most commonly hunted species seem to have healthy populations. But the results of the hunting are still unclear in more coastal and smaller dolphins.
For the people of Fanalei, the most pressing question is not the future of dolphins – it is their own survival against the growing seas.
“Dolphin hunting can be our identity,” Mr Fugui said, “but our lives and the lives of our children – this is important.”
