Dolphin killing has resumed in the Solomon Islands due to villagers' use of the sea creatures' teeth as currency and personal ornaments, alarming scientists and conservationists.
The traditional practice of luring dolphins to go ashore to be killed for their teeth is now back in the Solomon Islands, which, according to a study presented by the Royal Society of Open Science, could diminish the numbers of the sea creatures at a very fast and alarming rate.
The Earth Island Institute tried to intervene in 2010 and spent close to three years trying to put a stop to the dolphin massacre. However, the agreement with the conversationalist group began to wane in 2013, resulting in the resumption of the dolphin killings.
Villagers from Fanalei lured and killed 1,600 dolphins for their teeth in 2013 alone, which had been 70 cents apiece. The said price per teeth increased from a mere 14 cents.
Some 15,000 dolphins had been killed by villagers from the Solomon Islands for the past 37 years, the study says.
Dolphins may still be far off from being endangered, but the rate that they are killed each day is more than five times the hunt being done in Japan and other countries.
The species that got killed since 2013 included at least 1,500 pantropical spotted dolphins (Stenella attenuata), 159 spinner dolphins (Stenella longirostris) and 15 "bottlenose" dolphins, probably Tursiops truncatus.
