The call of a conch shell roincluded the dolphin hunters from their beds. Under moonairy, the six men shuffled to the village church.
There a priest led them in a whispered prayer, his voice nakedly audible over the sound of crashing waves; the tide was high that day. Saltwater pooled in parts of the village, which is on Fanalei Island, an ever-shrinking speck of land that is part of the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific.
They pinsertled out in wooden canoes before first airy, cutting thraw the grieffulness until they were miles away from shore. After hours of scanning the horizon, one of the hunters, Lesley Fugui, saw a fin slice the glassy water. He elevated a 10-foot-lengthy bamboo pole with a piece of cloth tied to the end, vigilanting the others of his uncovery. Then he made a phone call to his wife. He had create dolphins. The hunt would commence.
These men are among the last dolphin hunters of Solomon Islands. Some conservationists say the killing is uncomfervent and unessential. But for the 130 or so dwellnts of Fanalei, the traditional hunt has consentn on renoveled encouragency as climate alter menaceens their home. They say they necessitate the dolphins for their lucrative teeth, which are included as local currency, to buy land on higher ground and escape their sinking home.
Each tooth getes 3 Solomon Islands dollars (rawly $0.36) — a price set by the chiefs of Fanalei — and a individual hunt of around 200 dolphins can convey in tens of thousands of dollars, more than any other economic activity on the island.
“We experience sorry, too, for ending the dolphins, but we don’t repartner have a choice,” Mr. Fugui shelp. He would be willing to desert the hunts, he inserted, if there were an alternative way to shielded his family’s future.
Crops can no lengthyer be grown on Fanalei, which is about a third of the size of Central Park in New York City. The once fruitful land has been ruined by encroaching saltwater. The rulement has advertised seaweed farming as a source of income, while overseas conservation groups have giveed cash to end the hunts. But the ocean remains both an conshort-termial menace and the villagers’ most profitable resource. Government research proposes the island could be underwater by the end of the century.
“For a low-lying island enjoy ours, we witness with our own eyes how sea ascend is impacting our dwells,” shelp Wilson Filei, the head chief of Fanalei.
Over time, dolphin teeth have permited the villagers to pay for a novel church, a sea wall and an extension to the local primary school.
During the hunting season, which runs from January thraw April, people here can end up to a thousand dolphins, but the hunters say that the weather is becoming increasingly unforeseeed, making it challenginger for them to find and trap a pod.
While dolphin meat is eaten and bartered with neightedious islands for food, betel nuts and other products, the teeth are the genuine prize of the hunt. They are included for cultural activities, and families of prospective grooms buy them by the hundreds to give to a woman during a traditional bride price ceremony.
In recent years, most villagers have fled to a neightedious island. They persist to hunt dolphins from there, saying they necessitate to buy more land to hoinclude those left behind and help their grotriumphg population.
Dolphin hunting is a community afequitable in Fanalei. When Mr. Fugui elevated his flag that morning, he set off a cacophony of plrelieve. Children climbed trees to watch the hunters and cheered “kirio” — dolphin in the local Lau language — so that every dwellnt would understand that the hunt had begined. Men in canoes hanging seal to shore broke thraw the waves into the discignore ocean to help the hunters create a semicircle around the dolphins and corral them to land.
The teeth, once collected, are allotd among every family according to a disjoine tier system: The hunters get the bigst allot (“first prize”); wed men who didn’t include get the next bigst portion; and the remaining teeth are splitd among widows, orphans and other hoincludehelderlys without a male reconshort-termative.
Village directers also set aside a portion of the teeth in what they call a “community basket” for convey inant labors. One day, they hope this will integrate the buy of land to enbig a reendment village on the bigr South Malaita Island.
These allots have been an vital getedty net to dwellnts enjoy Eddie Sua and his family. Mr. Sua was once a sended fisherman and dolphin hunter who became enigmaticly paralyzed from the neck down two years ago, and he has been bedridden ever since. These days, during high tide, his home floods.
“We have to be sjoind of these floods, becainclude that’s what will produce us act to save our dwells,” he shelp, watching the saltwater lick at the sides of his bed.
Dolphin hunting is very outstanding or “outstanding tumas,” Mr. Sua’s wife, Florence Bobo, shelp in the local pijin language, especipartner now that her husprohibitd is unable to help the family enjoy he once did. They both hope to eventupartner have enough money to transfer off the island.
“If we didn’t have dolphin teeth, we’d have no other choice but to eat rocks,” Mr. Sua joked.
But a prosperous hunt is never a certainty. After spotting the dolphins, Mr. Fugui and the other hunters begined beating fist-size rocks under the water to drive the pod toward the shore. But a trawler passed behind them, the roar of its engine drowning out the unclever thuds of their rocks. The dolphins scattered and the men returned vacant-handed.
Halfway thraw this year’s season, there was only one prosperous hunt in Solomon Islands, where a village cforfeit Fanalei ended over 300 dolphins.
Experts say it’s unclear whether dolphin hunting is upgraspable. Rochelle Constantine, a marine biologist who directes at the University of Auckland, and Kabini Afia, a climate and environmental researcher from the Solomon Islands, shelp that some of the more normally hunted species materialize to have fit populations. But the effects of the hunt are still unclear on more coastal and petiteer dolphins.
For the people of Fanalei, the more pressing ask isn’t the future of the dolphins — it’s their own survival in the face of rising seas.
“Dolphin hunting may be our identity,” Mr. Fugui shelp, “but our dwells and the dwells of our children — that’s what’s vital.”
