Today's whaling news

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FROM WASHINGTON CITIZEN'S COASTAL ALLIANCE

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Sekiu, WA- 5:00pm

No Makah whaling activity today. Weather is extremely unstable, with very

heavy seas and high winds. We love it!

*****

 

 

 

GOOD AFTERNOON, PAUL SHUKOVSKY!

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Pro-whaling apologist at the Seattle Post-Intelligencer claims " tacit " IWC

approval for Makah hunt. Perhaps this will jog his memory...

 

 

The Times (London)

Saturday September 5 1998 - Editorial

 

Whaling Wall - The Makah do not have a " special case " for hunting

 

What would happen if the peoples of every nation were licensed to practice

their ancestral habits? Danes would take boat trips to Scotland to rape and

pillage. Londoners would create traffic havoc by driving sheep across Tower

Bridge. And President Clinton would be expected to exercise droit de signeur

over all internees.

 

The world would mill in a state of social tumult similar to that which will

be seen in microcosm next month when, in an extreme northwestern outpost of

the United States, members of the Makah nation take to the seas for a

whaling expedition amid flotillas of irate conservationists.

 

The history of the Makah tribe, now numbering some 18,000 members and mainly

confined to the remote Neah Bay area of Washington State, is steeped in epic

tales of whale hunts. Whale flesh was once a staple of Makah diet and, when

their tribal lands were expropriated in 1855, elders signed a treaty with

the Government providing for the continuance of ancestral customs. Shortly

afterwards, however, finding commercial sealing more lucrative, they almost

abandoned whaling.

 

And since then, as cetacean populations dropped to dangerous levels, America

became a signatory to the 1946 International Convention on the Regulation of

Whaling (ICRW).

 

The ICRW still allocates a whaling quota to indigenous communities whose

subsistence or culture depends on it. Russian Inuits can kill 140 gray whale

a year. But the

British Government, along with most other signatories to the ICRW, does not

consider the Makah to hold a valid claim. More than 70 years have elapsed

since their last whale hunt. Only a handful of elders recall it, and even

fewer can remember traditional recipes for whale meat. When a whale drowned

accidentally in Makah nets a few years ago, most of the flesh was dumped.

 

The gray whale, which the Makah are now intending to hunt, was almost

extinct by the end of the last century. Its removal from the endangered

species list five years ago bears testament to the rigorous conservation

efforts. Yet this cetacean is still insecure. Of the three lagoons off the

Mexican coast where it gives birth, two are already disrupted by the

Mitsubishi Company's industrial-scale salt

production and the third is now threatened. The last whale's migratory

routes up the West Coast are imperilled by heavy shipping, oil exploration

and seismic testing.

 

The Makah people appear willing to adapt to the modern world when it suits

them. Next month, rifles and motorised boats rather than traditional

techniques will be used to hunt the gray whale. The US Government should

capitalise on this willingness by encouraging their plans to invest in

aquaculture.

 

This sidestepping of the ICRW sets a dangerous precedent, without compelling

justification for doing so.

*****

 

 

 

PRESS RELEASE FROM AUSTRALIANS FOR ANIMALS

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* QUESTIONS TO THE MEDIA on THE MAKAH HUNT.

 

* What is the difference between Greenpeace and Sea Shepherd actively

protesting and intervening with the Japanese and Norwegian ships killing

whales and the demonstrators protesting the Makah ?

 

* Why does the US media continue to insist that the Makah kill is an IWC

sanctioned kill when the documentation clearly and irrevocably demonstrates

this is not the case..

 

* Why isn't the US media asking instead the reasons behind the Clinton

Administration flouting the IWC by creating its own recognition of whaling

that does not abide by any category of IWC legal whaling ?

 

* Why isnt the US media demanding to know the international

ramifications of the United States of America becoming a whale killing

nation ?

 

* Why is the US Government allow the killing of gray whales when they are

dying in their hundreds of starvation ?

 

* Why isn't the Clinton Administration calling for a halt to any killing

and taking immediate steps to investigate the obviously serious

environmental problem which exists and is demonstrated by the ongoing deaths

? In any other western country, the death of over 300 emaciated whales

would be regarded a national environmental disaster.

 

* Why is the Clinton Administration allowing the US Coast Guard to behave

like terrorists, deliberately injuring and placing at risk the lives of

protestors who have a democratic right to save whales.? ( See Greenpeace,

Sea Shepherd for the last 20 years).

 

* Why is the US media continuing to ignore the facts surrounding the Makah

tribe's dreadful move back to the Dark Ages ? ( See reporting of the

lawsuits).

 

* Why hasn't there been one single investigative piece which demonstrates

the links between the Makah tribe and powerful Japanese whaling interests?

 

* Why would the most powerful nation on earth stand back and allow the

deliberate slaughter of the only whale species on planet earth who comes to

boats and allows people to touch them and their young ?

 

These are the questions that all aware and responsible people are asking.

The US media has a responsiblity to answer.

*****

 

 

 

QUOTE OF THE WEEK

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" Times change and we have to change with the times, "

Ben Johnson, Makah Tribal Chairman

April 21, 2000 (Seattle Post-Intelligencer)

 

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