B.C. Native seeks revival of whale hunt

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>From Georgia Strait article " B.C. Native Seeks Revival of Whale Hunt " by

Sid

Tafler

 

One day in the not-so-distant future, you may travel to Vancouver Island not

just to watch whales but, perhaps, to eat them.

 

Tom Happynook, heir to a Native whaling chieftainship, already has the

recipe book, the lavishly illustrated Mrs.Ohnishi's Whale Cuisine, written

in Japanese and English. He has the passion and drive to revive his people's

ancient whaling traditions, and, he says, he has the right to hunt

whales-anytime he chooses.

 

Happynook is also the founder and chairman of the World Council of Whalers.

Happynook foresees whale meat in B.C. supermarket display cases, right next

to salmon steaks and oysters on ice.

 

But Happynook prefers not to discuss selling whale meat. Asked how many

whales the Nuu-chah-nulth would take if the hunt resumed, Happynook says,

" Initially, just one, " as Native people gradually grow accustomed to whale

meat again.

 

" A lot of our young people love hamburger, so we would introduce it as

hamburger meat. " But a Pacific hunt of one gray whale could grow to a

sustainable coastwide hunt of 1000, a whale sized harvest that would shock

those opposed to the resumption of whaling on this coast.

 

To Happynook, hunting and eating whales is.also probably about commercial

sale of whale meat, which he won't discuss but won't rule out, either. On a

shelf in his office is a cardboard box labeled " Western Canada Whaling

Company Quick Frozen Whale Meat " . This was a special order present given

by a friend as a joke, but with serious undertones. You can see where the

harvest of 30-tonne whales by Natives from a small village can easily lead.

Especially with all those eager diners filling the tables at Mrs. Ohnishi's

Restaurant in Osaka.

 

But the issue must surely be whether or not Native people have the right and

authority-moral and legal-to resume whaling, not whether or not they sell

their catch. Natives on this coast have always sold and traded their

surplus, and if they begin whaling again, they will surely find markets in

whale-hungry nations such as Japan.

 

Happynook and his fellow Nuu-chah-nulth leaders believe they have the

historical and aboriginal right to go whaling. But judging by the experience

of the Makah, their Washington State cousins, this right doesn't equal a

whale on the beach.

 

The Makah got the go-ahead from the U.S. government to hunt a gray whale as

of last Oct. 1, but by year end, dogged by animal-welfare activists

and rough weather, they were skunked. Happynook says the Makah were " set up

to fail " by U.S. authorities talking out of both sides of their mouth. He

says the Americans are among the nations on the regulatory international

whaling commission (of which Canada is not a member) that are the most

firmly opposed to whaling. They walk the fine line between officially

sanctioning the Makah whale hunt and doing everything in their power to

prevent it from succeeding, Happynook says.

 

Through the threat of forfeiture of federal funding, they prevented the

Makah from joining Happynook's emerging world whaling body and from using

the expertise of the world's foremost authority on whaling weapons, Egil Ole

Oen, a Norwegian veterinarian who has developed an exploding harpoon that

can supposedly kill a whale in ten minutes or less.

 

By the same token, 1000 gray whales could be hunted every year, based on

Happynook's 4% sustainability formula and an estimate of 25,000 of the

migratory grays in the North Pacific. But he stresses that this is only a

theoretical figure, to be balanced by other considerations, such as the

overall health of the stock.

 

" We don't make quick decisions. There will always be

Nuu-chah-nulth whaling chiefs. When everyone else is gone, we'll be there. "

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