LAMALERA, Indonesia — The pilot whales glided through the crystalline waters in neat formation, blue-gray backs glinting in the sun, on their migration through Indonesia’s Savu Sea. Suddenly a small motorboat revved its engine and charged at them, and a man on board launched a harpoon at one of the largest.
There was a splash of blood — and then a slow death, as the harpooned whale bobbed in the water, unable to free itself. The sailors plunged more harpoons into it, and about 30 minutes later a crew member slipped into the water and finished off the struggling creature with a knife to the spine.
Fishermen from the small whaling village of Lamalera, on a sunbaked island in remote eastern Indonesia, have been hunting whales for centuries. They still do, now with permission from the Indonesian government, as long as it is for their own consumption and not for commercial sale. They may also hunt dolphins and mantas for their own use.
Hauling a dolphin onto a boat. Villagers catch pilot whales, dolphins, mantas and sperm whales.
But as the government cuts down on illegal fishing in the Savu Sea, trying to conserve a critical migratory route for whale and dolphin species, conservationists are calling for a strict regulation of Lamaleran hunting practices, too.
“This is not basic needs. This is really beyond that,” said Glaudy Perdanahardja, an official with The Nature Conservancy, which is based in the United States but has an office in Indonesia that focuses on the Savu Sea. He suggested that islanders were no longer hunting merely for subsistence, but also for commercial purposes.
Although the group acknowledges the importance of whaling to the community, it worries that the introduction of motorboats to Lamalera more than a decade ago has led to the killing of more marine life. Nowadays, Lamalerans use motorboats to hunt dolphins, mantas and pilot whales, rather than traditional sailboats. While they still use sailboats to harpoon sperm whales, they sometimes use motorboats to tow the sailboats to the whales to speed up the chase.
“Now they can go farther and catch things they could not originally catch,” said Yusuf Fajariyanto of the conservancy, who visited Lamalera in 2015 to observe the hunting practices.
But Lamalerans bristle at efforts by outsiders to regulate their fishing practices. “The sea is our mother,” said Aloisius Gnneser Tapoona, 63, a grizzled harpooner who said he had killed around 80 sperm whales in four decades of hunting. “Those who would restrict our access to the sea are those who would kill our mother.”
“Villagers of Lamalera are born from the whale,” continued Mr. Tapoona, whose house is decorated with trophies from the whales he has harpooned. Their bones are displayed in a sculpture garden at the front of his yard. “I always tell my child, ‘Your bones are from the whale. Your blood is from the whale. Your flesh is from the whale.’”
Mr. Tapoona estimated that Lamalerans catch around 20 sperm whales a year along with uncountable numbers of smaller pilot whales, dolphins and mantas. The village’s hard and rocky soil makes growing crops impossible, so villagers have no choice but to take full advantage of what the sea provides, he said.
The hard and rocky soil in Lamalera makes growing crops impossible, so villagers have no choice but to take advantage of what the sea provides, one resident said.
Still, there are signs that Lamalera’s fishermen are trafficking in wildlife parts, which villagers say is related to changing economic times.
Over the last decade, cash has become an inescapable part of village life, as the barter economy fades. A local credit union opened in town a few years ago, offering loans for villagers to pay for modern needs like motor oil and their children’s education.
Over cigarettes and tuak, a foamy alcoholic drink made from palm fruit, fishermen confessed that loans had become a problem. A few bad catches, they said, and they could fall behind on their payments and slide deeper into debt.
In July, Indonesia’s police announced that they had intercepted a shipment of whale bones being trafficked between Lamalera and Poland. Last November, Gregorius Dengekae Krova, 61, a Lamalera fisherman, was arrested by Indonesia’s wildlife police after collecting manta fins for a presumed sale.
He was released after Lamalera elders raced to the police station, a day’s journey away, to demand his return, arguing that he did not know any better.
Sitting outside his ramshackle brick home, Mr. Krova said selling his catch, without regard to the species’ protected status, had allowed him, a man with a fourth-grade education, to pay for his children’s university attendance.
He said he had no intention of violating the law. “What’s the harm in us selling fish?” he asked. “It wasn’t stolen and it isn’t illegal drugs.”
Cutting a pilot whale. Fishermen hunt whales with permission from the Indonesian government, as long as they are for their own consumption and not for commercial sale.
Leonardo Lowokrore, the village priest, said that the law was clear, but that many villagers don’t understand. He added that Japanese and Chinese buyers frequently visited Lamalera to purchase delicacies like shark fins, but said he has counseled Lamalerans that selling protected species was no way to earn a living.
“There are many other ways to get your kid through school,” like catching unprotected fish species, or catering to occasional international tourists, he said.
Brahmantya Poerwadi, a director general at Indonesia’s Ministry of Marine Affairs and Fisheries in Jakarta, said he planned to meet with conservation groups and villagers to develop alternative methods of fishing to reduce the killing of protected species. “I honor the tribe,” he said. “But the thing is we need to do something.”
The villagers say they are fine as they are.
Each Friday, on market day, villagers from a fertile hill region nearby descend on Lamalera to trade produce that Lamalera’s thin soil cannot support, a practice considered legal. As a small red dust kicks up in the wind, Lamaleran women try to barter whole fish and slabs of whale meat for corn, vegetables and tobacco.
“Whale meat is the most delicious,” said Yustina Prami, an older Lamalera woman with a hunched back and a mouth stained red by betel juice. Although she barters her flying fish for corn, she will accept only cash for her dried sperm whale meat, a sign of its value.
“The whale is different from other fish,” said Aloysius Enga Beding, a middle-aged fisherman who, like many Lamalerans, believes sperm whales are a gift from the village’s ancestors. “Sharks and mantas are for whoever catches them. But whales are big. They’re for the entire community.”
On market day, villagers from a fertile hill region nearby descend on Lamalera to trade produce that Lamalera’s thin soil cannot grow.
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