Why these islands hunt dolphins

The call of a convicted crust was rubbing the dolphin hunters from their beds. In the moonlight, six people were involved in the village church.

There a priest, whispered them, and sounded hard on the voice of the voice, the waves of the waves; That day was tidal high. In the regions of the village of Fanalei, located in the parts of the village located on the island of Fanalei, a part of Solomon Islands in the South Pacific.

Before the pile in wooden canoes before the first light, cut the darkness until it is far from the shore. One of the hunters scanned Horizo, Lesley Fugui, saw the founding water with a slice. He removed the bamboo poles of a 10-meter-long bamboo-length with a piece of the discovery to the end, warning others. Then he made a telephone conversation to his wife. Had found dolphins. Hunt would start.

These people are one of the last dolphin hunters of the Solomon Islands. Some conservation says the massacre is cruel and unnecessary. However, traditional hunting for the inhabitants of 130 or more fanalei, was refreshed as it threatened the homes of climate change. They say they need dolphins for profitable teeth used as local currencies, take the land higher ground and avoid sinking homes.

Each tooth can produce 3 Solomon Islands dollars (approximately $ 0.36) – a price determined by Fanalei chiefs – and about $ 200 can bring more than $ 200 to ten thousand more economic activities.

“We also have a lot of regret to kill the dolphins, but we don’t really choose,” Mr. Fugui said. He would be ready to prevent hunting if he had an alternative way to ensure your family’s future.

The plants in Fanalei, one-third of the size of the Central Park in New York, can no longer grow. Once upon a time, the fertile soil was destroyed by sinking into salted water. The government has promoted seaweed as a source of income, and offered cash to finish the hunting in foreign conservation groups. However, the ocean remains the most profitable source of both the existential threat and the villagers. The government survey shows that the island can be underwater until the end of the century.

“For a low liar, like our own eyes, we are witnessing how the sea is in the rise.”

Over time, Dolphin’s teeth have allowed the villagers to leave for a new church, sea wall and local elementary school.

During the hunting season working in January-April, people can kill up to a thousand dolphins, but hunters are becoming increasingly unpredictable and difficult to find and trap a po.

Dolphin meat is eaten and the teeth are a true award of hunting when sinking with neighboring islands for food, betel nuts and other products. They are used for cultural activities, and the families of perspective grooms receive a woman to give a woman to hundreds of people during a traditional bride’s price ceremony.

In recent years, most villagers fled to a neighboring island. The rest of the rest will continue to hunt from there to get more land to take more land to take the land and support the population.

Dolphin Hunu is a community work in Fanalei. When Mr. Fugui raised his flag to that morning, the flavor was set off the Cakophon. Kids watching hunters and “Kirio” – Dolphin in Lanu – Kirio to know that each resident was climbed to applaud the dolphin. Men in the canols hanging in close to Shore passed to the open ocean to help the hunters form the semicircle around the dolphins and forms to the land.

The dents collected once are shared for a serious level between each family: hunters receive the biggest share (“first award”); Men who do not participate in the parties take the next largest part; The remaining teeth are divided between widows, orphans and other households without a male representative.

Rural leaders also separated a part of the teeth in what they call the “community basket” for great work. One day, I hope that this includes land acquisition to expand the settlement on the island of South Malaita.

These shares were an important security network to residents like Eddie Sua and his family. Mr Sua was once a fisherman and dolphin hunter in a mysterious way in a mysterious way two years ago and since then. These days, floods in the house during a high tide.

“We must be afraid of these floods, because this is what moves us to save us to save our lives,” and licks the salt water on their bed.

Dolphin hunting was very good or “Good Tumas”, – “Good Tumas”, Florence Bobo, in the language of the local pajin, especially when his husband had once, could not support the family. They both hope to have enough money to move from the island.

“If Dolphin did not have a tooth, we did not have another choice than eating,” Mr Sua joked.

But a successful hunting is never sure. After stinging the dolphins, Mr. Fugui and other hunters began to beat the punched sized rocks under water to drag the pod bar. However, one troll has passed them, and the roar of the engine drowned dull images of rocks. Dolphins were scattered and men returned empty-handed.

In this year’s season, there was only one successful hunting in the Solomon Islands, killing more than 300 dolphones in a village near Fanalei.

Experts say that the dolphin hunt is unaware of whether it is sustainable. AUCKLAND University, the Navy Biologist and Süleyman Islands Kabini AFIA’s cabini, a climate and ecological researcher, said that the more hunting species turned out to be healthy populations. But the effects of the hunt are still not clear in the coast and small dolphins.

For the people of Fanalei, the more relevant question is not the future of dolphins – it is the survival of the rising seas.

“Dolphin hunting can be our personality,” Mr. Fugui said, “But the life of our lives and children, it is important.”