Warning: This story depicts animal treatment that may disturb some readers.
Jack Bakale, the church chairman from the island of Sulufou, in Solomon Islands, has a simple way of describing it.
"For us, it's part of life," he told the ABC from his island home.
"These events are our culture — dolphin calling, and hunting, is our inheritance from God."
Last week, Mr Bakale's ancient cultural practice met a new type of culture: social media.
A video showing the killing of hundreds of dolphins on Mr Bakale's island went viral on local social media platforms, sparking heated debate in Solomon Islands and the broader Pacific.
For some, it is a "barbaric" practice that needs to be outlawed, or at the very least regulated.
But others, like Mr Bakale, say it is their cultural heritage, and one of the few ways they have to make a living.
"This is passed down by our ancestors. And if god accepts it, then we practice it."
Hunting season
Dolphin hunting and calling in Solomon Islands' Malaita province — where the island of Sulufou sits — dates back centuries.
Although it was phased out in the 19th Century as Christian missionaries came to the area, local historians suggest it was reintroduced in some communities mid-last century, with a handful of Solomon Islands communities now still actively hunting.
Although it differs from community to community, hunting season generally runs from January to April, with men in traditional canoes circling the dolphins in open water — sometimes banging rocks underwater — to entice them to land.
Estimates suggest around 1,000 to 2,000 dolphins are killed each hunting season across the Solomon Islands communities that still participate.
The meat of the dolphin is consumed, however, the practice is used predominantly to harvest dolphin teeth used for jewellery and bride price — where a groom's family will offer the teeth as a form of compensation.
"For us, if you give a dolphin's teeth it can stop an argument or compensate anything," Mr Bakale said.
"But the hunting is seasonal, not all the time.
"And [we must remember] all the communities that come together [and] take part in the harvest. So it's not just one person, or one island."
In the video posted to social media, rows and rows of dead dolphins can be seen, with community members watching on. Some of the dolphins are still alive, flapping on land.
The ABC has confirmed it was almost 200 that were harvested.
'A very complex issue'
The video of the dolphin killing has been shared thousands of times, becoming a major talking point in Solomon Islands, with some questioning the number of dolphins killed and why the practice continues.
Solomon Islands environmentalist Lawrence Kepangi Makili has been campaigning for the regulation of dolphin hunting for decades.
"It is a very complex issue," he told the ABC.
"People continue to hunt dolphins in the name of cultural or custom practices, but there is no proper regulation. There should be studies done in order for us to come up with the management practices for this."
Under Solomon Islands law, the export of live dolphins and dolphin products is illegal. But the hunting of dolphins using traditional methods is allowed, and dolphin-tooth necklaces are openly sold at markets in the capital Honiara.
There are no specific government restrictions on the number of dolphins that can be killed.
The Solomon Islands government was contacted for comment.
Mr Makili said he was concerned about the image that dolphin hunting portrayed to the outside world.
"It is really bad," he said.
"You can see in the video they [the dolphins] knew they were going to die. That's the sad thing about these animals; they think like human beings and they sense something bad is going to happen to them."
A complex history
Research into the practice is limited, but a 2015 study found while the hunt did not pose a threat to the dolphin species, it did have the potential to wipe out small and isolated dolphin communities.
The study found that "over-exploiting" local populations could make the practice unsustainable.
In 2010, US-based conservation group The Earth Institute attempted to stop the dolphin cull by offering villagers in the communities of Fanalei and neighbouring Walande — well south of the island of Sulufou — cash in exchange for foregoing the annual hunt.
But the agreement fell apart after divisions in the community, with the conservation group claiming the cash "vanished".
A New York Times article published last month, written by reporters who visited Fanalei, said the annual hunt continues in the community, with dolphin teeth now worth about $3 Solomon Islands dollars each, or about 55 cents Australian.
Now, The New York Times report said, residents were using the hunt to help them raise money to buy land and relocate to higher ground as their low-lying homes were becoming inundated by rising sea levels.
Back in Sulufou, Mr Bakale said the dolphin hunt was a shared practice together with multiple communities in the area.
The island of Sulufou itself is an artificial island built up by hand in a huge lagoon, known as Lau Lagoon. And although they don't have the immediate existential problems of rising sea levels seen in Fanalei, Mr Bakale said the dolphin hunt, like in Fanalei, was also their lifeline.
"People who have been commenting about it in Solomon Islands and outside of Solomon Islands, they truly don't understand," he said.
"They don't understand this ritual and how meaningful it is for the people of Lau for over the many, many years."
