Environment officials came out on Wednesday to deny accusations that whales and dolphins were being actively killed and hunted down in Indonesian waters, despite laws prohibiting the activity.
The statement was made in response to a video and photos posted online by US-based nongovernmental organization Earth Island Institute alleging they were evidence of the killing of whales and dolphins in Indonesia.
“It is not true. How could that be? I have never heard of dolphins being hunted before,” Agus Apun Budhiman, director of fish resources at the Ministry of Maritime Affairs and Fisheries, said at a press conference on Wednesday.
“Local people consider them [dolphins] as man’s best friends, so they would not go after them, let alone eat or use their meat as bait,” he added.
If ever there were any whales or dolphins captured, Agus said, it would have been accidental, not deliberate.
The video posted on the NGO’s Web site showed an interview with a local fisherman in Flores describing how dolphins are captured using home-made bombs. He said the captured dolphins were then killed to be used as bait to catch sharks for their fins.
“They use dynamite placed in beer bottles and throw them at dolphins. After dolphins got too weak, they captured them and tied their tails. They use them as baits for sharks as they needed [shark’s] fins that could be worth Rp 1 million [$117] for one kilogram,” the fisherman said in the interview.
The site also posted a picture of people surrounding a killer whale (Orcinus orca) on shore, claiming the picture showed the animal being butchered in Lamalera village, Lembata Island, Flores. Lamalera is known for its tradition of whaling.
Another two photos showed a pygmy sperm whale (Kogia breviceps), which the site claimed had been pregnant when it was slaughtered in Lamalera.
The site also said the photos, shot from 2010 to 2011, were meant to be evidence to persuade responsible companies, such as tuna importers, to put pressure on the government.
The ministry’s Agus said this wasn’t the first time such allegations had been made.
“[NGOs] presented us with similar videos on how dolphins are captured and used as bait at the Cites [Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species] meeting in Doha in 2010,” he said. “At the time we asked whether they were sure the images came from Indonesia, because it could be from somewhere else.
“It came as a surprise to us because we had never heard of such before. We are aware of shark killings and are collecting data on it and trying to control it.”
Indonesia bans the hunting of dolphins as they are protected, but not all shark species are safe from hunters.
During the Cites meeting in Doha, Indonesia supported big importing countries such as Japan, China and Singapore in voting down proposals to add four species of shark with great commercial value — the scalloped hammerhead, oceanic whitetip, porbeagle and spiny dogfish — to the Cites list of species with second-level protection.
Femke den Haas, founder of the Jakarta Animal Aid Network, the local partner of Earth Island Institute, acknowledged the whaling that had long been practiced in Lamalera, which sees villagers go out in traditional canoes to hunt the marine mammals.
“However, the capture of dolphins and orcas with the use of motorboats has nothing to do with tradition,” Femke said.
She added that the photos and the video did not indict just Lamalera.
“Indonesia is fast losing its shark population and dolphins are getting killed in the process too,” she said. “Many other countries worldwide have banned it. Now Indonesia is being overwhelmed with fishing boats looking for sharks and using dolphins and whatever they get their hands on as bait. Sharks in Indonesian waters should be protected.”
Furthermore, she said the meat from the hunted whales was no longer limited to consumption in the village, but was even sold on other islands.
“If it’s the traditional way of hunting whales for local consumption, we can’t have any objection. But the villagers started to use motorboats since 10 years ago and now so many dolphins are being captured and this is not part of tradition anymore.”
( x the JG)
do 19 mei 2011 - 1:37