The call of the conch shell evoked dolphin hunters from their beds. Under the moonlight, six men shuffled into the village church.
There the priest led them in a whispering prayer. The tide was high that day. The salt water was pooled in part of a village on Fanarey Island on Fanarey Island, part of the Solomon Islands in the South Pacific.
They paddled out into wooden canoes before the first light, cutting through the darkness until they were miles away from the coast. After a few hours of scans, we saw one of the hunters, Leslie Hughi, slashing open the glassy water. He raised a 10-foot-long bamboo stick with a cloth tied to the end, warning others of his discovery. He then called his wife. He had found a dolphin. The hunt begins.
These men are one of the last dolphin hunters in the Solomon Islands. Some guardians say the massacre is cruel and unnecessary. But for some 130 residents of Fanarei, traditional hunts have taken on a new urgency as climate change threatens their homes. They say they need dolphins for the favorable teeth used as local currency to buy land in highlands and escape the sinking home.
Each tooth has three Solomon Islands dollars (about $0.36) (price set by the Chief of Fanarei), and a single hunt for dolphins, about $200, can bring tens of thousands of dollars more than any other economic activity on the island.
“We're sorry we killed the dolphin, but we really have no choice,” Fugi said. He would be willing to abandon the hunt if there was an alternative way to secure the future for his family, he added.
Crops can no longer be grown on about a third of the wana rays in New York City's Central Park. Once fertile land has been ruined by erosion of salt water. The government promotes seaweed farming as a source of income, while overseas conservation groups provide cash to end the hunt. However, the ocean is both an existential threat and the most profitable resource for villagers. Government research suggests that the island could be underwater by the end of the century.
“For lowland islands like us, I witness with my own eyes how rising seas affect our lives,” said Principal Wilson Fee, Fanaray.
Over time, Dolphin's Teeth allowed villagers to pay for new churches, sea walls and extensions to local primary schools.
During the hunting season from January to April, people here can kill dolphins up to $1,000, but hunters say the weather is becoming increasingly unpredictable, making it difficult to find and lock them in.
Dolphin meat is eaten and bartered on adjacent islands for food, bean nuts and other products, but teeth are the true prize of hunting. They are used in cultural activities and the family of future grooms buy by hundreds of people to give to women in traditional bride price ceremony.
In recent years, most villagers have fled to the neighboring island. They say they need to continue hunting dolphins from there, house the people left behind, and buy more land to support the growing population.
Dolphin hunting is a community incident in which the Fana Rays are. When Mr. Fugi raised the flag that morning, he caused a dissonance of joy. Children will climb trees to see the hunters, cheer for “kirio” (dolf in local Lau) and all residents will know that the hunt has begun. The canoe man hanging near the coast plunged through the waves into the open ocean, helping the hunters form semicircles around the dolphins and landed them.
Once collected, teeth are shared among all families according to a strict tier system. Hunter wins the largest share (“first prize”). Married men who did not participate will get the next biggest part. The remaining teeth are divided into other households without widows, orphans and male representatives.
Village leaders also put some of their teeth aside in what is called a “community basket” for their major works. One day, they hope that this will include the purchase of land to expand the resettlement village to the larger southern island of Malaita.
These stocks were important safety nets for residents like Eddie Sua and his family. Mr. Sua was once a skilled fisherman, a skilled fisherman who mysteriously paralyzed his neck two years ago, and a dolphin hunter who has since been bedridden. Recently, at high tide, his house flooded.
“We have to be scared of these floods because that's what makes us act to save our lives,” he said, watching the salt water lick on the side of his bed.
Dolphin hunting is very good or “good balls,” says Sua's wife, Florence Bobo, in the local Pidgin language, and her husband, in particular, is unable to support his family as he once did. They hope they have enough money to eventually move from the island.
“If you don't have dolphin teeth, you're not going to have any other option than eating rocks,” joked Sua.
However, successful hunts are by no means certain. After finding the dolphin, Mr. Fugi and the other hunters began pounding fist-sized rocks under the water, driving the pod towards the shore. However, the trawlers passed behind them, and the roar of their engines owned the dull sound of their rocks. The dolphins were scattered, and the men returned empty-handed.
Midway through this season, there was only one successful hunt in the Solomon Islands. There, a village near Fanarei killed over 300 dolphins.
Experts say it's unclear whether dolphin hunting is sustainable. Rochelle Constantine, a marine biologist who teaches at the University of Auckland, and Kabini Affia, a climate and environmental researcher in the Solomon Islands, said some of the more commonly hunted species appear to have healthy populations. However, the impact of the hunt is still unknown to more coastal and smaller dolphins.
For the Fanarei people, the more pressing question is not the future of dolphins. It is their own survival in the face of rising oceans.
“Dolphin hunting may be our identity,” Huggi said.
