Wednesday, November 20, 2019 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
31
After 20 years, Washington tribe hopes to hunt whales again
By Gene Johnson
Associated Press
SEATTLE (AP) 4 Patrick
DePoe was in high school the
last time his Native American
tribe in Washington state was
allowed to hunt whales. He
was on a canoe that greeted
the crew towing in the body
of a gray whale. His shop
class worked to clean the
bones and reassemble the
skeleton, which hangs in a
tribal museum.
Two decades later, he
and the Makah Tribe 4 the
only American Indians with
a treaty right to hunt whales
4 are still waiting for gov-
ernment permission to hunt
again as their people his-
torically did. The tribe, in
the remote northwest corner
of Washington9s Olympic
Peninsula, hopes to use the
whales for food and to make
bone handicrafts, artwork
and tools they can sell.
The tribe9s plans have
been tied up in legal fights
and layers of scientific
review. The next step is a
weeklong administrative
hearing that began Thursday
in Seattle. Whatever the
result, it9s likely to be stuck
in further court challenges, as
animal rights activists have
vowed to block the practice
they call unnecessary and
barbaric.
<It shouldn9t have taken
20 years to be where we9re
at now,= said DePoe, a tribal
council member. <People
ask how it makes me feel.
I want to ask, 8How does it
make you feel that this is the
process we9re having to go
through to exercise a right
that9s already been agreed
upon?9 It9s a treaty right. It9s
settled law.=
In 1855, the Makah, a
tribe that now numbers about
1,500, turned over 470 square
miles (1,217 square kilo-
meters) of land to the U.S.
under a treaty that promised
them the <right of taking
fish and of whaling or seal-
ing at usual and accustomed
grounds.= They killed whales
until the 1920s, giving it up
because commercial whaling
had devastated gray whale
populations.
By 1994, gray whales in
the eastern Pacific Ocean
had rebounded and they were
removed from the endan-
gered species list. Seeing an
opportunity to reclaim its
heritage, the tribe announced
plans to hunt again.
The Makah trained for
months in the ancient ways
of whaling and received
the blessing of federal offi-
cials and the International
Whaling Commission. They
took to the water in 1998
but didn9t succeed until the
next year, when they har-
pooned a gray whale from a
hand-carved cedar canoe. A
tribal member in a motorized
support boat killed it with a
high-powered rifle to mini-
mize its suffering.
The hunts drew protests
from animal rights activists,
It shouldn’t have
taken 20 years to be
where we’re at now.
— Patrick DePoe
who sometimes threw smoke
bombs at the whalers and
sprayed fire extinguish-
ers into their faces. Others
veered motorboats between
the whales and the tribal
canoes to interfere with the
hunt. Authorities seized sev-
eral vessels and made arrests.
After animal rights groups
sued, the 9th U.S. Circuit
Court of Appeals overturned
federal approval of the tribe9s
whaling plans. The court
found that the tribe needed
to obtain a waiver under
the 1972 Marine Mammal
Protection Act.
The tribe applied in
2005. The process repeat-
edly stalled as new scientific
information about the whales
and the health of their popu-
lation was uncovered.
Some of the Makah whal-
ers became so frustrated with
the delays that they went on
a rogue hunt in 2007, killing
a gray whale that got away
from them and sank. They
were convicted in federal
court.
NOAA Fisheries has pro-
posed regulations allowing
the tribe to harvest 20 whales
over a decade, with limits
on the timing of the hunts
to minimize the chance of
killing endangered Western
Pacific gray whales.
The population of Eastern
Pacific gray whales, which
number about 27,000, is
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strong, despite a recent die-
off that has resulted in hun-
dreds washing up on West
Coast beaches, federal scien-
tists say.
The hearing that began
Thursday will focus on
highly technical arguments
about whether the tribe meets
the requirements for a waiver.
<There isn9t a big con-
servation issue here,= said
Donna Darm, a retired
NOAA official who began
working on the issue in 2005
and still does as a contractor.
The Sea Shepherd
Conservation Society and
Animal Welfare Institute
oppose the hunts. They argue
that NOAA9s environmental
review has been inadequate,
it9s not clear to what extent
the whales9 recent die-off has
hurt the population, and the
Marine Mammal Protection
Act may have voided the
tribe9s treaty right.
They also say the tribe
cannot claim a subsistence or
cultural need to hunt after so
many decades.
<The Makah9s family and
tribal traditions and rituals
associated with its whaling
history can continue without
the resumption of whaling,=
the Animal Welfare Institute
said in a statement Thursday.
<The Makah could, if it
chooses, attract and educate
untold numbers of visitors to
its lands by promoting non-
lethal use of whales through
whale watching.=
DePoe chafes at outside
groups dictating what his
tribe9s culture requires. He
recalled the pride he felt
when the Makah crew suc-
ceeded, the joy of sharing
the feast and the taste of the
whale meat.
<I have a little brother
who9s in his 20s,= DePoe
said. <He doesn9t remember
it. I9m hoping one day he can
experience that.=