By Hardy Jones
Dolphins
are again dieing on the northern coast of Peru. While reports have raised
concern for another mass mortality event (MME) duplicating the one in 2012, the
death of ten dolphins over the course of two weeks with no follow-on reports of
high rates of stranding does not represent an MME. Dolphins, of course, do die
from natural causes.
But
thousands of dolphins are dieing from highly UNnatural causes in Peru. Surveys
commissioned by BlueVoice and carried out by BlueVoice and Organización
Científica para la Conservación de Animales Acuáticos ORCA from December 2012
through February 2013 document a mass slaughter of dolphins for human
consumption by fishermen along a large part of the Peruvian coast. This
slaughter may cause the death of more dolphins than the infamous drive hunts at
Taiji, Japan, portrayed in my films for PBS and National Geographic and by the
academy award winning feature film, "The Cove".
Dr.
Carlos Yaipen Llanos, president of ORCA, and I conducted surveys in the area of
San Jose, a coastal village on the northern coast of Peru. An ORCA team later surveyed villages
south of Lima. We found numerous cadavers of dolphins on beaches with clear
indications they had been killed then butchered.
Fishermen
told us that dolphin hunting is common and takes place at dawn and dusk. Based
on interviews with fishermen, Dr. Yaipen Llanos confirmed that butchering often
takes place at sea and meat is delivered to shore in plastic bags or boxes.
In
the village of Bujama local people approached the ORCA team in a state of
dismay, saying "flipper has being killed!" "We were as shocked, as everyone else in the
beach", said Dr. Yaipen Llanos. After viewing the body he reported
"We found this dolphin right after it was slaughtered, after dusk, around
8pm. We found the dolphin (had) been collected, assassinated and slaughtered
specifically for meat extraction and human consumption."
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It
turns out the hunting of dolphins in Peru is nothing new. It's been going on
for decades. Photos going back thirty years show dolphins pulled from the
waters off the famous surfing venue of Cerro Azul, just south of Lima. I
remember one of the great thrills of my life -had been surfing with dolphins at
Cerro Azul during my Peace Corps days in the late 1960s.
According
to a paper by Stefan Austermuhle, Executive Director of the Peruvian marine
conservation group Mundo Azul (Blue World), during the 1980s and 90s between
15,000 - 20,000 dolphins were killed annually. In 1995 a law was passed
prohibiting the practice and numbers of dolphins killed declined dramatically.
But the take today is still in the thousands.
While
it's illegal to hunt dolphins in Peru there is virtually no enforcement. And
recent changes in the law make it legal to take dolphins
"accidentally" when they're caught in nets and drowned. And under
this law phony accidents most certainly will happen.
Dr
Yaipen-Llanos reports that, according to local fishermen, small fishing boats
hunting dolphins follow pods mainly at dusk and dawn. The dolphins are caught
using nets thrown from caballitos de tortora (small boats constructed from
reeds) and then harpooned while still in the net. This is consistent with
reports by Mundo Azul in 2003 that "the fishermen encircle whole dolphin
schools with nets, catch them with harpoons, lift them aboard and kill them by
clubbing them to death".
We
learned that in addition to using nets, the fishermen disperse insecticide and
oil to kill sea lions and dolphins. The price of dolphin meat can be as little
as five Peruvian soles per kilo - about one dollar per pound, making it a very
cheap source of protein for poor people. There seems to be no concept among
fishermen and consumers that eating meat from an animal that was killed with
poison is not a healthy practice.
In
December 2012 I joined Dr. Yaipen Llanos in visiting San Jose Mayor Victor
Paiva in his municipal office. He openly admitted to eating dolphin meat
himself and asked nine other municipal workers if they ate it. All replied that
they did. Dr. Yaipen-Llanos asked a woman on the street of San Jose (population
7434) how much dolphin meat was eaten in the village. She replied "the
village subsists almost entirely on dolphin meat".
Having
been a Peace Corps volunteer in Peru, I am well aware of the poverty and lack
of education confronting a large number of Peruvians. I revere dolphins and
abhor the act of hunting them but would face something of a dilemma if poor,
hungry people hunted dolphins that were safe to eat. While levels of
contamination in dolphins does vary from place to place, both organic and heavy
metal contamination are distributed on currents throughout the ocean ecosystem.
Dolphins are at the height of the marine food chain and bio-accumulate these
toxins to high levels of concentration. Our tests on the hair of Mayor Paiva of
San Jose showed he had mercury levels more than twelve times higher than the
"safe" level recommended by the U.S. EPA. We were unable to test for
organic pollutants due to lack of facilities in Peru.
Peru
is by no means the only place where fishermen hunt dolphins for food and/or
bait to catch sharks. Recent reports from Tanzania document substantial hunting
of dolphins to be used to bait sharks which are then finned. Shark fins are
considered a delicacy both locally and in Asian markets and bring a lucrative
return.
In
the West Indies pilot whales and other on a regular basis and meat can be
purchased, among other places, in the market at Castries on Dominica.
In
a comprehensive paper published in 2011 Robards and Reeves concluded "It
is now clear that human consumption of marine mammals is geographically
widespread, taxonomically diverse, and often of uncertain sustainability. Since
1990, people in at least 114 countries have consumed one or more of at least 87
marine mammal species."
In
many places these hunts are not sustainable. Marine mammals do not reproduce
rapidly and use of their bodies to perpetrate such egregious practices as shark
fining could extirpate populations of dolphins and other marine mammals in many
locations. The current situation demands further research into the reason for
the increase in hunting dolphins and other marine mammals as bush meat. More
than that, it demands cooperation through international agencies to end the
practice of using large-brained mammals for food and bait.
