A reversal of the usual news story on the whale hunt...

[Guest guest]

Maybe because it's from Canada.....

 

Dian

 

Zoocheck Canada wrote:

 

> The following article is from The Vancouver Sun newspaper in Vancouver BC,

one of Canada's most respected dailies. Its website is at

http://www.vancouversun.com.

>

> Whale protester claims injury after boat rammed

>

> Chris Nuttall-Smith Vancouver Sun With Associated Press

>

> A Canadian anti-whaling protester says she was knocked unconscious when a

U.S. coast guard vessel rammed her boat off Washington State's Neah Bay

Monday as members of the Makah Indian tribe began their hunting season for

grey whales.

>

> Julie Woodyer, 35, a director of the Vancouver Humane Society, said she

and the protest boat's captain came across the hunt Monday morning while on

their usual patrol and were trying to leave a 500-yard exclusionary zone

around the natives' canoe when they were rammed.

> The captain of the protest vessel, Bill Moss of Olympia, Wash., was

arrested and is being held on federal charges of violating the exclusionary

zone, a coast guard spokesman said.

> Moss is the first protester associated with the Makah hunt who has been

arrested on the charge, which carries a maximum U.S. $250,000 fine and a

six-year sentence.

> The boat was also impounded.

> Chris Haley, the coast guard spokesman, said the pair ignored several

warnings to leave the area around the hunting canoe and had evaded two

earlier attempts by coast guard boats to steer them away.

> They also ignored the first bump from a coast guard boat, Haley said.

" Immediately they got back up and they went full throttle again toward the

Makah whaling canoe, " he said.

> Haley said the coast guard videotaped the incident and planned to release

the footage to U.S. media Monday night.

> Woodyer, a Toronto native who also participated in last-year's protests

around Neah Bay, was treated Monday for back pain,, then released.

> The Makah began hunting grey whales last year with the backing of the U.S.

government after successfully asserting that the traditional hunt was one of

their treaty rights.

> However, the hunt angered anti-whaling activists, who were enraged when

the Indians, armed with a rifle, killed and butchered a whale last May 17.

> The Makah say the hunt, which is carried out from a hand-carved canoe, has

revived a sense of pride among tribe members and they plan to continue the

practice.

> The grey whale population was nearly extinct early last century, but it

has since grown to more than 20,000 whales. The animals were removed from

the U.S. endangered species list in 1994.

> In 1997, the International Whaling Commission granted a quota to the U.S.,

which lets the Makah kill 20 of the animals through 2004.

> Five Makah families have been preparing for this year's hunt as this

year's spring grey whale migration between Mexico and Alaska gets under way,

said Keith Johnson, head of the Makah Whaling Commission.

> Woodyer said her protest group, called The World Whale Police, plans to

try to scare whales away from hunters in order to save them.

> She said one of the best ways to do that is to get between the whales and

the hunters.

> Jonathan Paul, founder of the Sea Defence Alliance, a two-year old

anti-whaling group, said Monday the protesters will continue their fight.

> " We're going to do what we have to do to stop the killing, " he said.

>

 

______________________-

 

Barry Kent MacKay

International Program Director

ANIMAL PROTECTION INSTITUTE

www.api4animals.org