HISTORICAL INTRODUCTION 53 



SO far caught about 120,000 dolphins off the Black Sea coast partly with 

 nets (Russia) and partly with guns (Turkey and Bulgaria). 



The natives of many tropical islands, as well, go in for dolphin hunting 

 on a big scale. On the south coast of New Guinea, for instance, the 

 Papuans capture Malayan Dolphins [Prodelphinus rnalayanus) which visit 

 the area in schools of up to one thousand, and whose ineat is considered a 

 great delicacy. Fresh-water dolphins (the Platanistidae) are caught in 

 rivers. The Susu, or Gangetic Dolphin (Fig. 117), which is blind, is 

 confined to the Rivers Ganges, Indus and Bramaputra; the Amazonian 

 Dolphin or Boutu occurs in the Upper Amazon and its tributaries, i ,500 

 miles from the open sea; the La Plata Dolphin occurs in the estuary of 

 the River Plate; and the Chinese River Dolphin (Fig. 188) is never seen 

 except in Tung Ting Lake (roughly 600 miles up the Yangtze Kiang). 

 The Gangetic Dolphin, in particular, is caught with nets. Its flesh is eaten 

 and its oil used for lighting and as a cure against rheumatism. The Boutu, 

 on the other hand, which is a prodigious hunter and even gobbles up the 

 voracious Piraya, is never killed deliberately by the natives, who think that 

 blindness strikes anyone w'ho uses Boutu oil in his lamp. This belief is 

 probably due to the fact that the animal has a very small eye aperture. 

 The natives, moreover, believe that the Boutu comes ashoi'e during certain 

 festivities, to join in the celebrations. Alany a local child is said to have 

 been fathered by a Boutu on such occasions, particularly when the merry- 

 making was at its height. 



Some dolphins occur in lai'ge schools, and if they happen to get into 

 shallow waters they may panic and dash against the beach or rocks with 

 great speed. Wherever the natives value the meat and know how to 

 process it, they look upon such an event as a godsend, but where they 

 do not, the stench of the rotting carcasses soon becomes obnoxious, pai'- 

 ticularly in the tropics. Often the local population 'helps' this kind of 

 panic by chasing schools ashore as soon as their airival is signalled by 

 watchers. On loth March, 1952, for instance, 52 White-Sided Dolphins 

 (Fig. 18) were caught in this way near Kalvag (Norway). The yield from 

 this catch was i -3 tons of blubber, i -8 tons of bone, and 3 tons of meat 

 which was sent to the fox-breeding farms. 



In some parts of the world dolphin-hunting is carried on regularly and 

 on a large scale, in particular oflf the coasts of Japan where various 

 dolphins congregate in big schools. During May and June 1949, one 

 whaling company alone harpooned 1,163 dolphins of three different 

 species near Onahoma. Since the products are in great demand and since, 

 moreover, there are no limitations as to the overall catch, this industry is 

 expanding rapidly. At the time the ruling market price was 2,000-3,000 

 yen, i.e. £^~£s per animal. Another spot where dolphins, and Bottlenose 



