The first foreigners to arrive in Alola were not interested in, or even aware of, the human population; they were sealers seeking Popplio pelts and meat. When nearby villagers emerged, however, they did not stop them from hunting the Popplio – perhaps because they prized the metal goods they had been offered as payment, or perhaps because they feared confronting the ship's large cannons and the captain's Gyarados. This exchange would not only have immense ramifications for the history of Alola as a whole – as any schoolboy there can relate – but would also herald the decline of the once abundant wild Popplio.
As Alola opened to the world, so did its beaches, and taxes collected from the Popplio hunt funded the great palaces of its kings. But Popplio were not only prized for their pelts; the large, balloon-like bubbles they blew were a must at any festival, and a beloved symbol of the region. Which made it all the more worrisome when the Popplio which once crowded Hano Beach disappeared, replaced by the Pyukumuku they used to feed on.
Popplio had dealt with occasional human predation since human arrival in Alola, but their numbers were simply not nearly large enough to sustain hunts from sealers across the pacific. Amidst immense popular unrest, the king ordered the hunt stopped; when gunboats came to his palace to force the law repealed and collect debts his kingdom could no longer pay without the Popplio tax, Alola's residents captured the last remaining wild Popplio, protected them, and trained them in captivity.
Today, there are no more Popplio crowding the beaches on holidays, but the ones who perform at them blow bubbles larger and more majestic than ever.
