Many will find these graphic pictures upsetting.<\/p>\n
But for the indigenous people of Lamalera, a village on the south coast of Lembata in Indonesia, whale hunting has been a way of village life for hundreds of years.<\/p>\n
The 75ft-long sperm whale is the Lamalera’s favoured prey, but due to decreasing numbers, hunters are increasingly turning their spears on sharks and dolphins to provide enough food for their village.<\/p>\n
These images were taken during a hunt in one of the last places on Earth where people still use traditional methods to fish.<\/p>\n
The skilled fishermen sail out on a wooden peledang, a wooden boat that can hold up to 14 men. The most agile stands on the bow armed with a ‘kefa’ – a bamboo pole with an iron-blade and knives.<\/p>\n
He then leaps from the boat, piercing the animal with the kefa before swimming back to collect another pole.<\/p>\n
A whale’s blubber is a foot thick and the men, dwarfed by the enormous animal, risk their lives as they try to bring it to shore.<\/p>\n
The whale or shark usually drags the boat through the water faster than a jet-ski before it finally succumbs. Sometimes the fishermen have to battle for up to six hours.<\/p>\n
It may seem cruel, but it is a a far cry from the whaling fleets of Japan, whose factory boats and grenade harpoons wreak slaughter on an industrial scale.<\/p>\n
Whales migrate between the Indian Ocean and the Pacific during May to October. As such Lefa Nue or the sea season, starts on May 1 and continues into October.<\/p>\n
The villagers continue to fight increasing pressure from various organisations and NGOs are trying to encourage tourists to take part in whale watching rather than hunting.<\/p>\n
But the people of the village remain defiant, saying they need to keep hunting to survive.<\/p>\n
The sperm whale and the whale shark are classed as ‘vulnerable’ on the the IUCN Red List of Threatened Species.<\/p>\n
This means they are likely to become endangered unless the circumstances threatening their survival improve.<\/p>\n
Associated Newspapers Ltd<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"menu_order":26934,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[177],"tags":[723,935,1943,2148],"region":[28],"source":[443],"country":[],"state":[],"city":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newss\/36997"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newss"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/newss"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/newss\/36997\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=36997"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=36997"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=36997"},{"taxonomy":"region","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/region?post=36997"},{"taxonomy":"source","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/source?post=36997"},{"taxonomy":"country","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/country?post=36997"},{"taxonomy":"state","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/state?post=36997"},{"taxonomy":"city","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.icsf.net\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/city?post=36997"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}