Armed with research, compassion and graphically bloody undercover footage, Stefan Austermühle, a Peru-based activist, and BlueVoice, a Florida-based NGO, are working to stop the slaughtering of what they estimate to be 5,000 to 15,000 dolphins annually in Peruvian waters.

Austermühle, a German native, traveled to Peru 17 years ago to help the country create legislation prohibiting dolphin killing; he eventually fell in love with a Peruvian campaigner and stayed. On Christmas 2002, he and his wife were walking on the beach and realized that, despite the law, the killing problem was far from over.

"We saw these two dolphins swimming along the beach. It was beautiful. We sat there observing them," Austermühle said in an interview with Latin Post. "Next morning, jogging on the beach we found the same two dolphins sliced into pieces, sitting on the beach."

Austermühle then began conducting undercover surveys on illegal dolphin killing and sharing it with local police. Officers, however, were undereducated about environmental law. In fact, Austermühle said he and his colleagues were ones who taught Peruvian police about conservation law and raids. He even participated in raids himself, taking pictures and documenting.

In 2006, Austermühle learned that dolphins were being used as shark bait. Clearly, the problem was bigger than the government understood, and the law wasn't working. That's when Austermühle sought the help of BlueVoice, an ocean conservation group founded in 2000 by Hardy Jones and Ted Danson that has done extensive work in dolphin, shark and whale conservation around the world.

"[Stefan and I] hit it off very well," Jones, BlueVoice executive director, said in an interview with Latin Post. "He's a very thorough, honest, persistent, compassionate individual, and I guess the real reason we came together was over the potential of sending in a documentary film video crew on one of the fishing boats that was taking dolphins for shark bait."

As a result, BlueVoice agreed to fund Austermühle's expedition, which placed him in a small leaky boat off the Peruvian coast from September to early October of 2013. Austermühle told the fishermen that he was making a documentary on shark fishing, but in actuality, he was trying to get video proof that fishermen slaughter dolphins. There was a risk that the boat Austermühle boarded would not kill a dolphin, but the practice is so commonplace that he took the chance.

And "commonplace" doesn't even begin to explain what Austermühle caught on tape.

Austermühle's Expedition

"By the time that it came to [witnessing dolphin killings], we had gained so much trust with the fishermen that they just didn't care, apparently, of getting filmed doing that," Austermühle said. "They thought that's all for international TV, and it's not going to be published in Peru. That's a very naive way of them to think about it."

Austermühle admits that, while filming, he was a professional only focused on getting the shots he needed, but afterwards, he was able to recognize the intensity of what he witnessed.

"I didn't have any emotion [during] the entire trip. I just switched off entirely all my emotions. When I came back and saw that footage for the first time on the computer, and I had people from my NGO [Mundo Azul] standing beside me starting to cry, I got emotions for the first time," Austermühle recalled. "Now, I honestly sit in front of my screen sometimes crying."

Austermühle captured footage of dolphins being harpooned in the water, carried onto the boat, clubbed to death and cut up to be used as bait or to be sold for human consumption on the black market. These images were especially disturbing to Jones and left him with a "sad, angry impression."

In addition to gaining proof that dolphins are still slaughtered despite the law, Austermühle witnessed how brutally sharks are killed as well.

“They put that shark on the boat, take a knife, cut in front of the eyes and [then cut] the nose off. With that, you expose the first of the three ‘brains’ -- three bubbles of brains in a line between each other -- and they cut through the first one," Austermühle said. "The animal is not dead, it's moving the eyes."

Next, Austermühle said the fishermen sit on the shark, then smash its brain with their finger or use a long wire to "push down the spinal cord." They stop moving, but Austermühle says they're still alive.

"I've seen some of the sharks still moving ... on the other side of the boat where all the cadavers are laying one over the other ... still moving their fins half an hour after that. So they're still alive with half their face cut off," he said.

"It's a moveable point connected to a rope, so [fishermen] stamp that movable tip into the dolphin," Austermühle explained. "Then, the shaft goes out, and the point stays in the dolphin, connected with a rope, so now ... he can bleed out [and] get weak. Once he can't move much anymore, you drag him down to the boat, hook him with the steel hooks and lift him on board."

The rule would be a simple one: "It is prohibited to produce, sell, own or transport a harpoon on a boat." According to Austermühle, the Peru's minister of fisheries and the Ministry of Production have refused to create the rule. Neither entity could be reached for comment.

"These things take place far out in sea. It's difficult to enforce," Jones said. "The country of Peru has limited resources [and a] limited coast guard. The other thing is there is very little motivation for these politicians to get involved and maybe anger the fishermen."

Jones said that legislation regarding harpoons has been presented to the Congress of the Republic of Peru, but Austermühle estimates creating a law through the government could take many months.

In May, the two activists announced a bounty for information leading to the capture and conviction of dolphin killers and have received two calls thus far.

Future

Meanwhile, Jones hopes to turn Austermühle's footage into a documentary reminiscent of "The Cove" and is even in talks with Louie Psihoyos, the movie's director, about potentially working together. Jones and BlueVoice have produced over 70 television documentaries, including PBS' "The Dolphin Defender."

Jones, who was a Peace Corps volunteer in Peru in the '60s, insists he's not out to make Peru look bad.

"I'd like it to end up being a win film for Peru, ... a film where these atrocities are exposed, then Peru takes action and in the end comes off looking good," he said.

Jones is also optimistic that Peru can stop the dolphin slaughtering because the country already has legislation prohibiting it.

"I think we have a much better chance of effecting change in Peru than we did in Japan," Jones said. "In Peru, pretty much everyone you talk to says, 'Yes, this should be stopped.' ... There's a potential in Peru to save a lot of dolphins."

The documentary won't come out for a few years, Jones said. Until then, the activists just want the world to know how harmful dolphin slaughtering and, in addition, shark fishing really are.

"Fishing is not that romantic Ernest Hemingway thing anymore. It's a slaughterhouse," Austermühle said. "Fishermen work like machines. ... They don't care if the shark or dolphin ... suffers for 40 minutes. ... Everyone has to decide if that's the way he wants his food to be produced."

Austermühle added that dolphin slaughter is not just an environmental crime but a cruel one as well.

"When we talk about animals feeling pain, nobody talks about fishing. We always assume that fish don't feel pain. Well I have seen that fish feel a lot of f*cking pain," he said.
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Follow Scharon Harding on Twitter: @ScharHar.

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