B5
THE ASTORIAN • SATURDAY, NOVEMBER 16, 2019
Mother unable to Tribe hopes to hunt whales again
forgive and forget
By GENE JOHNSON
Associated Press
Dear Annie: My daugh- healthy person doesn’t say the
ter recently passed from com- things she has. I hope she seeks
plications of myasthenia gra- help and recognizes the impact
vis. She died unexpectedly she’s had on people, especially
one evening after she stopped you and your daughter.
breathing during an MG crisis.
In the meantime, you are
Myasthenia gravis is a chronic under no obligation to be
autoimmune neuromuscular friends with her. I’m not advo-
disease that causes weakness cating hostility: A neutral,
in the skeletal muscles,
matter-of-fact
atti-
which are responsible
tude
will
do
just
fi
ne.
DEAR
for breathing and mov-
If she fi nds that offen-
ANNIE
ing parts of the body,
sive, she shouldn’t
including the arms and
have said what she did.
legs.
It’s not about harbor-
My problem is
ing a grudge but rather
with her mother-in-
respecting your own
law. While my daugh-
boundaries and needs.
ter was receiving treat-
Focus on you and
ment for this disease, ANNIE LANE honoring your daugh-
Creators
her
mother-in-law
ter and your loss right
Syndicate Inc.
told her she was mak-
now. The work of grief
ing up the symptoms
is demanding enough.
and actually went so far as to
Dear Annie: My wife and
accuse her of having Mun- I and four friends went out
chausen syndrome. Mind you, to dinner at a new restaurant.
this was after a weeklong stay They had a ladies’ room and
in the ICU. This is just one a men’s room visible from
example of her dislike for my where we sat. After the meal,
daughter. She did not approve I needed to go. The men’s
of my daughter’s marriage room was locked (it was a sin-
to her son and was not very gle-stall situation). I walked
happy about their relationship around for a bit and came
from the beginning.
back after nearly 10 minutes.
My question is this: How The door was still locked, and
can I ever be friendly to I continued to wait. Finally, I
this person again after she couldn’t last any longer. The
made these horrible accusa- women’s room was unlocked
tions toward my daughter and and vacant, so in I went. When
treated her with such disre- I came out, everyone said that I
spect? It was hard enough to was rude and out of line. I said
be cordial with her and her that they were being overly
husband at the funeral. Since sensitive! What should I have
we live in the same town and done? — Almost Up a Tree
share a grandchild with them,
Dear Almost Up a Tree:
I’m trying to forgive and for- You did your due diligence in
get. But I am having a really waiting for the men’s room.
hard time with this. She gave Next time, I’d caution you not
my daughter a lot of stress, to wander around the restau-
and stress is one of the things rant, in case the person emerges
that can trigger a crisis when and you miss your opportu-
you have MG. So every time nity. And I’d encourage you
I see her, I can’t help but feel to go to the restroom preemp-
she played a contributing fac- tively, before it’s an emer-
tor in my daughter’s passing. gency. That said, I don’t think
— Missing My Daughter
anyone can fairly call you rude
Dear Missing: I am so sorry here. It was a single-stall bath-
for your loss. Your daughter’s room, and you ensured that it
mother-in-law is heaping addi- was empty before entering.
tional pain onto your already If your wife and friends fi nd
unbearable load. Her behav- that so uncouth, I’d ask them
ior goes beyond the realm of what the other options were
meanness: It sounds as though in that moment. Sometimes,
she might suffer from a men- when nature calls, you have no
tal disorder herself. A mentally choice but to answer.
SEATTLE — Patrick DePoe
was in high school the last time
his Native American tribe in Wash-
ington 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 reas-
semble the skeleton, which hangs in
a tribal museum.
Two decades later, he and the
Makah Tribe — the only American
Indians with a treaty right to hunt
whales — are still waiting for gov-
ernment permission to hunt again
as their people historically did. The
tribe, in the remote northwest cor-
ner of Washington’s Olympic Pen-
insula, hopes to use the whales for
food and to make handicrafts, art-
work and tools they can sell.
The tribe’s plans have been tied
up in legal fi ghts and layers of sci-
entifi c review. The next step is
a weeklong administrative hear-
ing that began Thursday in Seattle.
Whatever the result, it’s likely to be
stuck in further court challenges,
with animal rights activists vow-
ing to block the practice they call
unnecessary and barbaric.
“It shouldn’t have taken 20
years to be where we’re at now,”
said DePoe, a tribal council mem-
ber. “People ask how it makes me
feel. I want to ask, ‘How does it
make you feel that this is the pro-
cess we’re having to go through to
exercise a right that’s already been
agreed upon?’ It’s a treaty right. It’s
settled law.”
In 1855, the Makah, a tribe that
numbers about 1,500, turned over
470 square miles of land to the
U.S. under a treaty that promised
them the “right of taking fi sh and
of whaling or sealing 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 east-
ern Pacifi c Ocean had rebounded,
and they were removed from the
endangered 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 Whal-
ing Commission. They took to the
water in 1998 but didn’t succeed
until the next year, when they har-
Elaine Thompson/AP Photo
Makah Tribal Council Member Patrick
DePoe before a federal court hearing
in Seattle to help determine whether
his small American Indian tribe can
once again hunt whales.
pooned a gray whale from a hand-
carved cedar canoe. A tribal mem-
ber in a motorized support boat
killed it with a high-powered rifl e
to minimize its suffering.
The hunts drew protests from
animal rights activists, who some-
times threw smoke bombs at the
whalers and sprayed fi re extinguish-
ers into their faces. Others veered
motorboats between the whales and
the tribal canoes to interfere with
the hunt. Authorities seized several
vessels and made arrests.
After animal rights groups
sued, the 9th U.S. Circuit Court
of Appeals overturned federal
approval of the tribe’s whaling
plans. The court found that the tribe
needed to obtain a waiver under the
1972 Marine Mammal Protection
Act.
Eleven Alaska Native communi-
ties in the Arctic have such a waiver
for subsistence hunts, allowing
them to kill bowhead whales —
even though bowheads are listed as
endangered.
The Makah tribe applied for a
waiver in 2005. The process repeat-
edly stalled as new scientifi c infor-
mation about the whales and the
health of their population was
uncovered.
Some of the Makah whalers
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 proposed
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 Pacifi c
gray whales.
The population of eastern Pacifi c
gray whales, which number about
27,000, is strong, despite a recent
die-off that has resulted in hundreds
washing up on West Coast beaches,
federal scientists say.
The hearing that began Thursday
will focus on highly technical argu-
ments about whether the tribe meets
the requirements for a waiver.
“There isn’t a big conservation
issue here,” said Donna Darm, a
retired NOAA offi cial who began
working on the issue in 2005 and
still does as a contractor.
The Sea Shepherd Conservation
Society and Animal Welfare Insti-
tute oppose the hunts. They argue
that NOAA’s environmental review
has been inadequate, it’s not clear
to what extent the whales’ recent
die-off has hurt the population and
the Marine Mammal Protection Act
may have voided the tribe’s treaty
right.
They say the tribe cannot claim a
subsistence or cultural need to hunt
after so many decades.
“The Makah’s family and tribal
traditions and rituals associated
with its whaling history can con-
tinue without the resumption of
whaling,” the Animal Welfare Insti-
tute said Thursday. “The Makah
could, if it chooses, attract and
educate untold numbers of visi-
tors to its lands by promoting non-
lethal use of whales through whale
watching.”
DePoe chafes at outside groups
dictating what his tribe’s 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 who’s in
his 20s,” DePoe said. “He doesn’t
remember it. I’m hoping one day he
can experience that.”
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