Fishermen in Amazon See a Rival in Dolphins

Alexei Barrionuevo New York Times 16 Apr 11;

IGARAPÉ DO COSTA, Brazil — Along the rivers of the Amazon rain forest, people still recount legends in which pink dolphins are magical creatures that can turn into men and impregnate women. Brazilian musicians write songs about them, singing lovingly about the “eye of the river dolphin.”

But for Ronan Benício Rego, a fisherman in this tiny settlement, pink dolphins are both rival — and prey.

Standing on the muddy banks of the river here recently, he said he had killed river dolphins many times before, to use as bait to catch a catfish that is sold to unknowing consumers in Brazil and Colombia.

“We want to make money,” said Mr. Rego, 43, the president of the community here. Two dead dolphins could yield about $2,400 in catfish sales in a single day of fishing, he said.

But bait is not the only objective. Though the pink dolphins are protected by law, the fishermen see them as nettlesome competitors for the catches that feed their families, and their frustration sometimes boils over.

“I have harpooned some just to be mean,” Mr. Rego said, lifting a harpoon to demonstrate how he would spear dolphins at close range.

The illegal slaughtering of dolphins is on the rise here, threatening one of the storied symbols of the Amazon and illustrating the challenge of policing environmental law in such a vast territory, researchers and government officials say. Hundreds, if not thousands, of the estimated 30,000 river dolphins plying the Amazon region are dying every year, they say.

Miguel Miguéis, 41, a Portuguese researcher from the Federal University of Western Pará who studies river dolphin populations around the city of Santarém, said the high rate of killings could lead to their extinction. “They are killing their culture, their folklore,” Dr. Miguéis said. “They are killing the Amazon.”

Several hours upriver from here, in the biological reserve of Rio Trombetas, where river dolphins swim in an Amazon tributary teeming with piranhas and crocodiles, Dr. Miguéis said he had seen the dolphin population fall to a little over 50 earlier this year from about 250 in 2009.

“I am really worried about what is happening at the reserve,” Dr. Miguéis said.

Brazil’s environmental laws strictly prohibit the killing of dolphins and many other wild animals. Violators could face up to four years in prison. But enforcement in the vast Amazon is a huge challenge for Ibama, the Brazilian environmental protection agency, which has 1,300 agents covering the entire country. The Brazilian Amazon alone is larger than India.

Fishermen in Igarapé, about three hours by boat from Santarém, said agents from Ibama had never visited their community of about 350 people.

Luciano Evaristo, the director of environmental protection with Ibama, acknowledged a growing problem with the killing of river dolphins in the Amazon related to high demand in Colombia for the catfish, and he vowed to crack down on the practice.

Using dolphin meat as bait for the catfish “is horrible, and Ibama will stop this,” Mr. Evaristo said. “When Ibama gets there, many people will be arrested.”

Yet here in the heart of the Brazilian Amazon, many people are indifferent about the killings. At an open-air market in Santarém, vendors sell genitals removed from dead dolphins as good luck charms for sex and love. Jars of oil from river dolphin fat sit alongside oil from anacondas and crocodiles. The dolphin oil potion, which sells for about $25 a small bottle, is used to treat rheumatism, a saleswoman explained.

At a Santarém fish market, customers said they had no idea fishermen were using dolphins to catch the catfish, known as piracatinga in Brazil. Still, they said protecting dolphins was not a priority.

“I would eat the fish if I knew it ate dolphins because the dolphins are healthy and come from the Amazon River,” said Teresa Oliveira, 67.

Local legends, dating to before Columbus arrived in the New World, have long warned Amazon residents to be respectful but wary of the river dolphins, which they believe have magical powers and can do evil.

“I always tell my daughters to stay away from the water during their menstrual cycle,” said Maria Siqueira, 59, who lives in Trombetas. “Just like my mother told me, I tell them the dolphin will impregnate them.”

Legends aside, the slaughtering of Amazonian dolphins has become a serious concern for Brazilian officials. Mr. Evaristo said Ibama planned to investigate the possibility that Brazilian fishermen were involved in an organized criminal operation with ties to Colombia.

About a decade ago, overfishing of a popular fish in Colombia called capaz collapsed the stocks and practically wiped out the species, said Fernando Trujillo, the scientific director of the Omacha Foundation, an environmental group in Bogotá. Seeking a substitute, fish processors and vendors began using the piracatinga from Brazil. In Colombia this scavenger fish is known as “mota.”

“The consumer has no idea what he is buying and consuming,” Mr. Trujillo said. “And they have even less of an idea that dolphins are being killed to catch this fish.”

Andrés García, 31, who runs a fish stall in the Paloquemao market in Bogotá, said he would stop selling the catfish if he knew it was being caught with dolphin meat. “More than one of us would say no to this practice,” Mr. García said. “The dolphin is an animal threatened with extinction. I wouldn’t want to support something like that.”

Mr. Trujillo said he had found the species of catfish linked to dolphin killings in two grocery store chains in Colombia, Éxito and Carrefour. Press officers for both companies denied that the chains were buying the fish from Brazil, saying that they buy the catfish from Venezuela, though Mr. Trujillo doubted that the companies knew how the fish were caught.

Dr. Miguéis, the Portuguese biologist, has been on a crusade since 2005 to protect the river dolphins and identify their killers. He and some of his students identified several small settlements near Santarém where fishermen had turned to killing pink dolphins to attract the catfish. The fishermen sell them to local fish-processing plants, which then export the catfish to Colombia and other countries, he said.

Fishermen in Igarapé said they got the idea from Colombian fishermen. A few years ago, a group of Colombians near the triple frontier with Peru and Brazil taught at least two Brazilians a special technique in which they submerge a gloved hand into the water holding pieces of dead dolphin bones. The catfish, attracted by the dolphins’ strong odor, quickly latch onto the bait, fishermen said.

Among those who learned the technique was a man from Santarém who goes by Pelé, the name of the famous Brazilian soccer player. Pelé, in turn, came to Igarapé and taught some of the fishermen, including Mr. Rego, the “hand in glove” technique using dolphin bait, the fishermen said.

“People could not believe he could fish so many tons in one night,” said Nélio da Silva Campo, 32. “He became a professional at it.”

The fishermen soon discovered that the catfish was a potential bonanza. “In just two hours we would be making 100 reals,” Mr. Rego said, more than $60. “It was fast.”

Mr. Rego and other fishermen said they had stopped slaughtering dolphins about a year ago, fearing action by the authorities, and now used pig meat to catch the catfish instead. But two of their wives said the fishermen continued to kill dolphins, sometimes in front of their homes.

“I saw many die here,” said Silvia Rego de Santos, 31.

In Igarapé, veteran fishermen like Edilson Rocha, 58, recount stories of their battles with the pink dolphins. To the fishermen, the dolphins are abundant in the river and should not receive special environmental protection. They say they cause a nuisance by getting caught in their nets trying to feed.

“We don’t like him; we are his enemy,” said the burly Mr. Rocha, minutes after hoisting a stingray from the river with a lone fishing line. “I killed one when I was waiting for the fish to bite,” he continued. “He kept coming closer and the fish were leaving, so I harpooned the dolphin. I couldn’t stand it anymore.”